Fight Back: The Path Of Corruption
by Dominus Noobius
Summary: It was in two shots that Claude Speed's world turned upsidedown. Now, he faces a battle through the worst city in America, Liberty City, with only one thing in his mind...revenge!
1. Betrayal

**A/N: **Well, here I am, once again, for my fourth GTA story! Yes, yes, another novelization…this time of GTA III, as I've read plenty of extremely good ones, that haven't been finished. This story will be slow, as I might be deciding to write a Halo story at the same time, but for now, I present: "Fight Back".

**Disclaimer: **I do not own GTA III or any characters of this game, Rockstar do. So file lawsuits for anything except this.

The Banshee sped through the late-night Liberty City ghost town. Its dark blood-red paintwork gleamed in the moonlight. This was Liberty City, the city with the highest crime-rate in America, surpassing Vice City, Los Santos, or Carcer City since…well, since the 1992 riots in LS. You would have to face an eternal struggle, just to survive the streets. One wrong move, one wrong decision, and you could be lying on the ground in your own pool of blood.

This was what Claude had become. A common sort of guy, working in the Columbian Cartel with his beloved girlfriend, Catalina. They had run off from the brisk lifestyle of speed, and guns in the countryside of San Andreas, and for years, they had robbed banks and committed crimes. This was their big chance. They would be working with the leader of the Cartel, Hernando, for this important bank heist.

Eventually, the Banshee slid to a halt next to the Liberty City Bank. Claude gave a quick look at Catalina, and saw her fiery, but beautiful eyes as she jumped out of the car, holding a pistol. Hernando was waiting for them, also with a pistol. Claude would be giving them cover with his pump-action shotgun.

They entered the bank, successfully getting the money, and Catalina charged out, speeding for the escape as the alarm blared. Hernando followed her, with a briefcase in either hand. As the police began to come, Claude came from cover and fired a shotgun, continuously. Eventually, the area had been cleared of any hostiles, and Claude went off to find Catalina and Hernando. He would regret it.

As he arrived at the scene, he found her girlfriend's eyes fixed evilly on him, a cocky grin plastered over her pale face as she pointed two pistols at him. Hernando was lying in a heap next to the Banshee.

"Sorry babe, but I'm an ambitious girl. And you-" she laughed, firing a bullet at Claude.

"You're just small time," she smiled seductively.

She got inside the Banshee, and sped off into the night. Claude coughed a bit silently, blood pouring from his wound, but he could barely move, let alone escape, and the SWAT team found him lying on the ground, exhausted, and easily arrested him.

Claude sat silently in despair as he was driven in the back of the SWAT van to the courtroom, but there was no need for any case. He was guilty, sentenced ten years for bank robbery. _Ten years just for love, and a chance to get big in one of the rising gangs of Liberty_, Claude thought. The police let him catch some sleep, as they dragged him into the van for escort to Liberty City Peniterary.

It was about 4:00 when Claude woke up, finding himself next to a dark-skinned man, with bandaged hands, and an old oriental Asian gentleman with a calm aura.

"Hey, I'm 8-Ball. You were the one who got arrested last night…jeez that must be tough. Shot in the throat," the black man, called "8-Ball", said as Claude pointed at his throat.

But by now, they had noticed something was wrong. The convoy had stopped, and there was some muffled voices. All of a sudden, the SWAT van came to a halt. The back door opened, and Claude spotted the familiar Hawaiian t-shirts-the Columbian Cartel. They pushed aside the cop, shouting.

"Come on!"

"Senor Dickhead. It's no problem to kill you," one of them snarled, pointing his assault rifle.

"You gonna be sorry. All right, get lost," the other said, dragging the old Asian gentleman, and running off into the night, back towards their Patriots. But before they left, they dropped something down on the bridge. A bomb?

The policeman who had been pushed aside brushed himself, and he headed back on. But Claude and 8-Ball had realised: this was their chance to escape. Claude knocked down the cop with a punch, and they clambered out. Then they realised there was something _else _wrong. But before they could react, a huge explosion rocked the Callahan Bridge, and sent the two of them flying into the sides. Claude saw black as he thumped into the hard concrete.

When he came to be again, his eyes, still bleary from the blast, spotted 8-Ball leaning next to a green Kuruma, amazingly, not destroyed by the blast.

"I know a place on the edge of the Red Light District where we can lay low, but my hands are all messed up, so you better drive, brother." 8-Ball told Claude, showing hi his bandaged hands which had gotten a bit worse after the explosion.

Claude quickly turned around, and gasped silently at the destructive scene. The Callahan Bridge that he had driven across many times had been wrecked, and cut straight in half, and there, was the burnt wreckage of the convoy. Claude turned around slowly, and got into the Kuruma with 8-Ball. He turned on the ignition, and the engine roared softly into life.

"Fancy checking the news, brother?" asked 8-Ball.

Claude nodded, and he turned on the radio. It was nothing like the radio that he had in his old Banshee, probably now a piece of scrap metal under investigation or something. Damn Catalina.

"Liberty city is in shock today, as the police and emergency services deal with the aftermath, of a devastating attack on a police convoy this morning. As yet, no details have been released about the prisoners being transferred in the convoy, and no proof has claimed responsibility. A convoy left police headquarters early this morning, for a routine transfer of felons, to the Liberty City penitentiary. The attack took place on the Callahan Bridge, leaving few witnesses, and the bridge itself, severely damaged. Some of the convicts are thought to have perished, in the explosion that followed the initial attack. Revelations as to the professionalism of the attack, struck police hours afterward, when identification of the missing felons were further hampered by an attack, by computer hackers on police headquarter databases. With the Porter tunnel-project falling behind schedule, this disaster leaves Portland isolated from the rest of the city," came the serious voice of the news reporter.

Claude breathed a quiet sigh of relief, and he continued driving the Kuruma slowly towards the hideout, following the directions 8-Ball gave him. The police had responded very quickly to the attacks, and they were swarming to the destroyed Callahan Bridge. Claude felt very lucky to be alive, rather than rotting in a cell or lying in a pool of blood with a bullet hole in his head.

They eventually pulled up to a grubby-looking flat in the Red Light District. 8-Ball got out, not bothering at surveying the place, telling Claude:

"This is the place right here, let's get off the street and find a change of clothes!"

As Claude followed him inside, 8-Ball whispered to him:

"Hey, man, I know it's not much, but there was a guy called Mike, he wanted to escape from this city a few months ago, he lived here and built his way up as well. Right now, he's probably sitting in paradise, right outta here."

Claude shrugged as they headed inside. A single room with a TV and bed, and a bathroom was before him. 8-Ball rushed over to the closet, and grabbed some clothes, picking out a white shirt and blue jacket. Claude wore a black bomber jacket and green cargo pants.

As they headed back outside, 8-Ball had some more information.

"I know this guy, he's connected, and his name is Luigi." 8-Ball said.

_Luigi? _Claude thought quietly. Sounds too Mafioso to me. But he continued to listen, as this could be a job opportunity for him.

"Me and him go back so I could probably get you some work. Come on, let's head over there." 8-Ball continued, clambering back into the car.

Claude drove the Kuruma to Luigi's Sex Club, only a few blocks away from the hideout. They parked at the front of the club, and 8-Ball got out.

"This is Luigi's club, let's go round the back and use the service door," he said.

Claude followed him as they made their way to the back door.

"Wait here man while I go in and talk to Luigi." 8-Ball told him, heading inside, and greeting the ladies there.

Suddenly, an angry-looking man in a suit charged out. _Must be Luigi_, mused Claude.

"8-Ball's got some business upstairs; maybe you can do me a favour. One of my girls need a ride, so grab a car and pick up Misty from the clinic. Then bring her back here." Luigi said. But as Claude was about to turn around, he yelled:

"Remember no one messes with my girls! So keep your hands on the wheel! If you don't mess this up, maybe there'll be more work for you. Now get out of here!" he shouted.

Claude shrugged, a bit annoyed, and if he could speak right now, he probably would have told Luigi to take a chill pill. But he made his exit, and got inside the Kuruma, driving over to the hospital.

"Yo, yo, yo, it's OG Loc and I'm gonna be a gangsta and whoever disrespects me is a…yeah, yeah bitches," came the inimitable voice that nobody wanted to imitate.

Claude winced at the horrible rapping, and sadly remembered the time when he and Catalina had laughed at OG Loc's rapping. But those times were over. All he had now in his mind was revenge.

He arrived at the clinic and turned off the radio, parking next to a red-haired woman, who must have been Misty, and confirmed this by calmly telling him her name. Claude drove her back silently to the Sex Club, where Misty thanked him for the ride and handed him some of her cash she had made from roaming the streets. Claude counted this up to be $1500, enough to spend on food and things, but not quite enough. But it was a start, a start on the long road to revenge. He wanted to go back across the alley to see Luigi for more work, but he was so tired that he dragged himself and his car back to his hideout, and fell into a sleep.


	2. Extra Muscle

**Disclaimer: **I do not own GTA III or anything associated with it. Rockstar do. However, I do own this story, and cannot be reproduced without my permission.

Claude woke up feeling much less lethargic as he had been earlier today. He dressed himself again, and he drove his Kuruma back to see Luigi for another job.

Liberty City was bathed in afternoon sunlight, and Claude listened briefly to the antics of Lazlow on Chatterbox, and he brightened up slightly. He headed to the back door of Luigi's club, and knocked on it. A man came out, not Luigi, but was probably one of his assistants. When he caught Claude's calm eye, he stammered and handed him an envelope.

"Luigi said to, to give you this so…here, here take it," the man trailed off.

Claude peeled open the envelope, and found a scrawled letter by Luigi:

"_There is a new high on the street, goes by the name of SPANK. Some wiseguy's been introducing this trash to my girls down Portland Harbour. Go and introduce a bat to his face! Then take his car, respray it. I want compensation for this insult!"_

Claude shrugged, and then he noticed a carefully-hidden baseball bat just across the street. He picked it up, took a couple of practice swings, and he got back into his Kuruma, driving down to Portland Harbour. It didn't take too long to find the SPANK pusher. He was talking eagerly to two girls, and offering drug-like things. Claude shook his head and sighed, taking his bat and creeping towards the pusher and Luigi's girls.

The girls were giggling, probably high by the drugs, but one of them noticed Claude, and screamed:

"Behind you!"

The spank pusher spun around, only to get decked by a fierce swing from Claude's bat. Blood poured down his face, and he slumped to the ground, unconscious. Claude continued doing Barry Bonds on the man's face, satisfied. The girls screamed and ran off, and Claude calmly scavenged the man's pockets for his drug money. He picked up $2000, and he got inside the Stallion that the man had driven in, and he drove off to the Pay 'N Spray.

After having the Stallion painted for free, with the men having been tipped off by Luigi, he drove his car to the lock-up that Luigi had requested him to drop the car off at, where the men there gave him another $2000 for his trouble. Claude was very satisfied with himself, and he headed off to the nearest Cluckin' Bell, purchasing a large meal and a cola. While he did that, he jacked a Diablo Stallion that was straying out of regular Diablo turf, and raced off with his new car.

Finally, he was headed out of the Cluckin' Bell, well-fed and watered. He drove back to Luigi's Club for another job. This time, he didn't need to knock as the pimp was already out there, speaking to the man he had confronted an hour ago. He noticed Claude, and he made a look for him.

"Hey, I gotta talk to you…All right Mick; I'll talk to you later." Luigi said to the man, and he went off to Claude.

"How you doing, kid? The Don's Son Joey Leone wants some action from his regular girl Misty. Go pick her up in Hepburn Heights, but watch you, that's Diablo turf." Luigi warned Claude, handing him a map.

"Then run her over to his garage in Trenton and make it quick, Joey ain't the kind you keep waiting, remember, this is your foot in the door, so keep your eyes on the road and off Misty!" Luigi finished, nodding at Claude and heading back inside.

Claude made his way to Misty's apartment in his newly-stolen Diablo Stallion, and although she was a bit cautious at first, she soon noticed Claude and clambered inside. As they drove towards the garage in Trenton, she asked:

"You working regular for Luigi now huh? It's about time he got a driver we can trust!"

Claude shrugged silently again, and he drove her back to Joey's garage, where a middle-aged man was polishing the frame of a Sentinel-looking car. The two of them got out and Misty immediately rushed to Joey, hugging him.

"Joey! Am I going to get to play with your big end again?" asked Misty.

"I'll be with you in a minute, spark plug." Joey replied, heading over to Claude.

"Hey, I'm Joey. Luigi said you were reliable so come back; there might be some work for you. All right?" he asked, as he handed a handful of $100 bills to Claude.

Claude nodded to him and he happily drove his Diablo Stallion back to Luigi's. But as he was about to go inside, Luigi stormed out, not very happy.

"Some Diablo scumbag has been pimping his skuzzy bitches in MY backyard. Go and take care of things for me. If you need a piece, go around the back of AmmuNation opposite the subway." Luigi told him, and slammed the door shut.

Claude drove over to AmmuNation, following Luigi's instructions, only to find everything sold out, but the shop owner came to his rescue.

"Luigi said you were coming, so I left a piece out back. And would you want to give me your Sumo Wordman page number so I can inform you when our next stock arrives?" asked the shopkeeper.

Claude nodded, and gave the man thumbs-up as he headed to the back of the alley, finding a pistol lying on the ground. He probably didn't need to sue it, but it was good to add to his collection.

As he walked out of the so-called legal gun shop, his eyes followed a civilian model Humvee, a Patriot driving about. He quickly rushed to the strong vehicle, dragged the passenger out, and got inside, going off to look for the pimp. He soon found the pimp with a girl, and after he had dropped her off, he drove off in his Diablo Stallion. Claude followed him slowly, but he took his chance as soon as the pimp went across an intersection, as he accelerated right across the Diablo Stallion's path, sending the Stallion crashing into the wall, and flipping over. The two Diablo men came crawling out; one with an Uzi and the pimp was holding a shotgun.

Claude bailed out of the Patriot and watched as the Hummer continued on, running over the pimp and his driver in the process, and thumping into a wall next to the Diablo Stallion, which had just caught fire and exploded. Satisfied that the two men were dead, Claude retrieved the two powerful weapons, and he drove to repair his Patriot, and get his pay from Luigi.

He received $4000 for his deed, but he hadn't quite finished his mission yet. Luigi for once, wasn't too pissed, and he calmly reported his job.

"The policeman's ball will be held by the old school hall near the Callahan Bridge, and they'll be looking for some 'old skool' action. Now I got girls all over town walking the streets. Get 'em to the ball, they'll make a bundle. Get as many of them as you can before the cops drink away their green." Luigi said.

Claude shrugged, and Luigi marked off a map where all the girls were supposed to be roaming the streets, and told him he would phone ahead on his girls.

Claude had noticed a bus parked in Trenton after he had delivered Misty to Joey, so he decided to quickly drive there and get inside it. Although the bus was slow, it was easy enough to drive around Portland, take all the hookers, and arrive at the LCPD ball, where loud music blazed out from inside the hall.

Claude stole a Sentinel driving on the streets, and cruised back to Luigi's. It was only then he noticed that the night was getting dark and the stars were shining pearly-white. He was astonished to see how fast time went, and how tired he was. As soon as he received his reward from Luigi, he was also told by Luigi that he didn't have anything else to do, and he would page him if he ever required some help. Happy with his day's work, Claude settled into a night of sleep, ready to see Joey tomorrow as soon as the garage opened.


	3. Bombs Away!

**A/N: **Hi, everybody. Yep, I'm back with a new chapter, and some random additions. If you want me to remove them, I will consider doing it. Peace out.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own the GTA series or any characters that belong to it. However, I do own this story and PLAYERBMP, the randomly-created shop I've added. Meh, I hate these things. Let's start!

Claude grimaced slowly as he woke up. His clothes were sitting on the bed with him, and they smelled. He needed to find a new clothes shop. After digging around the house for a bit, he eventually found some sort of Liberty City guide. He checked inside for any clothes shop. Zilch. Well, he found a few advertisements about ZIP opening up, but that wasn't going to be for…another four months. As he was about to shut the guide in annoyance, he spotted something in the corner of his eye: PLAYERBMP; a place where you can get your look modified. It was just up the road, in the Red Light District, so Claude decided to watch some TV before setting off for another day of dirty work.

"Good morning, this is LCN News, bringing you some breaking news. Police have raided a storehouse in Portland Docks, and have discovered a red Banshee with a case of money and the drug SPANK in it. They are currently investigating, and believe that the Banshee belongs to one of the robbers of the Liberty City Bank, only a couple of days ago. Although the felon is though to be dead, police are still searching Portland thoroughly for any signs," came the monotous voice of the news reporter.

_Shit_. That bitch Catalina, Claude thought. The Columbians must have flown it over after the heist. He needed to be much more careful now.

"And in other news, a helicopter as been shot down by surface-to-air missiles over the desert in San Andreas, further putting mystery over: what is going on in Bone County? And what is the place that isn't on the map? Richard Burns, our San Andreas correspondent and now husband of WCTR News anchorwoman Leanne Forget, is reporting."

Claude turned off the TV, and dressed himself, quickly rushing outside and getting his money before moving into his Patriot.

After eating a brisk breakfast at a place in the Red Light District, Claude, still with bacon in his mouth, drove over to PLAYERBMP, to get the so-called makeover. It was a flash shop, with plenty of clothes and accessories, and that relieved Claude. He headed inside, and he pointed to his throat at a confused shop assistant, telling him silently that he was mute.

"Okay, sir, please take a look and write down what you want on a piece of paper," the shop assistant said.

After taking his time, Claude picked out an FM radio receiver, a gold crowex watch and a tweed jacket. After he had them checked out, he gave a wad of $100 bills, and wrote "Keep the Change".

After changing his clothes and driving back to his safe house to deposit his old clothes, it was only then he noticed there was a washing machine with washing powder. He stuffed his old clothes in the washing machine, and set it to auto-wash. Finally, he was ready to take on the day for Joey. He got into his Patriot, and drove off to Joey's garage.

When he arrived, it looked like Joey had just opened up, and Misty was leaning against one of his cars, looking sulky.

"Hey, I'm bored, when you gonna drill me?" she asked to Joey.

"In a moment, sweetheart, I've got a little business to take care of." Joey said, walking over to Claude, and grinning at his new clothes and accessories.

"I've got a little job for you pal, the Forelli brothers have owed me money for too long, and they need to be taught some respect. Lips Forelli is stuffing his fat face in St Marcos Bistro, so steal his car and take it to 8-Ball's bomb shop in Harwood." Joey said, his eyes narrowing.

"You know 8-Ball, right?" asked Joey.

Claude nodded.

"Once he's fitted it with a bomb, go park the car where you found it. Then sit back and watch the show. But hurry up, he won't be eating forever." Joey said.

Claude rushed out of the garage and drove his Patriot as quickly as he could over to the bistro. He smirked silently at the fact that for some reason, Mike Forelli hadn't locked his car. Shaking his head, he jumped inside Forelli's dark Idaho, and drove off to 8-Ball's.

"Hey, bro, how you doing? Joey phoned ahead; I heard you were taking out a Forelli, huh?" 8-Ball grinned as Claude pulled up into the garage.

8-Ball headed into the back of the room, and took out an explosive. After flinging the bonnet open, he attached the bomb to the engine, and fiddled about a bit more, and then nodded at Claude.

"Okay, the horn will arm the bomb. It'll blow up when the ignition is turned on. Now hurry, man." 8-Ball gave Claude a thumbs-up, and Claude quickly reversed out of the garage.

After driving as quickly as he could back to St Marcos Bistro, Claude pulled an elegant 90 into the parking spot, like the one he had done to get a gold award at the Driving School in San Fierro. He'd passed that course as well, and he had been rewarded with a Super GT, but that dickhead Catalina had "donated" it to the Columbian Cartel. What an asshole. Claude got out, and he jogged towards a nearby bush, hiding behind it.

After a few minutes, a fat man with a Desert Eagle walked out. Claude guessed this was Mike Forelli. He raised his eyes as Mike didn't even bother checking anything as he got inside his car. A few seconds later, there was a huge explosion and Mike Forelli became nothing more than Forelli soufflé. Pleased with himself, Claude drove back to Joey's for another mission. On his way, he watched the latest Beat the Cock triathlon, starting from the Portland Beach waters, riding through Portland, and ending at the Callahan Bridge. He smirked to himself at the man dressed up as the rooster was puffing back in last position, well back.

When he had got back to Joey's Garage, he found Joey lying under a BF Injection dune buggy-one vehicle he hadn't seen since he'd gone to Liberty. Joey had spotted Claude now, and he acknowledged him.

"Chunky Lee Chong is pushing SPANK for some now gang from Colorado…or Columbia…or something, who needs details anyway. He has a noodle stand down in Chinatown. That rat as served his last stir-fry. I want you to take him out! If you need a piece, go around back of AmmuNation opposite the subway. Sort yourself with a nine; you know where it is right?" Joey asked.

Claude nodded and Joey continued.

"Well remember, just watch your back in Chinatown, it's Triad territory." Joey reminded him.

Before Claude headed out, Joey gave him his pay for his last job: $10K. Not bad, thought Claude as he walked out. But there still was a job to be done. After grabbing his pistol from AmmuNation, he drove over to where he had always remembered the noodle stands to be, and he had enjoyed some of them as well. He got out with his Uzi and pistol well-hidden, and he scanned the noodle stands. Most of them were innocent and had no signs of being protected, just doing their trade, until he spotted his target, a Triad on either side of him, one with a pistol and the other with a bat. Nearby, Claude also saw two Perennials parked in the only exit for a vehicle to the place. Guessing this was Chunky Lee's escape vehicles, Claude drove one of the Perennials away, and he then retrieved the second one, to visit 8-Ball for the second time today.

"Hey, again. So who you taking out this time?" asked 8-Ball, as he once again went over to get another bomb.

Claude grabbed a piece of paper, and wrote down Chunky's name, before he paid 8-Ball $1000 for the addition of the bomb, and drove the Perennial back to its original position. He pulled out the Uzi he had from his mission for Luigi, and began firing the Triad with the pistol first, and then the one with the bat. Both dropped down from a hail of lead, and Chunky made a run for it: towards his Perennial. Claude let him run for it, and watched as the Perennial blew up in a haze of smoke. Satisfied, he walked back to grab the pistol ammo and bat, and drove back to Joey's.

Joey was waiting for him, and after giving him his pay of $10,000, he told him that the job he wanted him to do wasn't available, as it involved jacking some bank van and driving it to a garage. Claude, happy with his day's work, headed back outside, and heard the ringing of a phone not too far away. He picked it up, and found out that the caller was an owner of a dog food factory, called Marty Chonks, who was in need of some desperate finance and help, so over the next hour or so, Claude did his dirty work, and netted $10,000 in total for four jobs before one of the men who Claude had been told to pick up, killed Marty Chonks instead, and to Claude's relief, brought an end to the pointless killing. Instead, he headed back to his safe house, turning on the FM receiver and letting the music wind him asleep.


	4. The Thrill Of The Chase

Claude woke up with the sense of a new day pulsing through him. He dressed in his clothes, grabbed his .45 pistol lying on the desk next to him, and headed outside with a wad of cash, hoping to get a good breakfast and arrive at Joey's early. He got in his Patriot, frowning slightly. He still wasn't used to a slow car, as his old Banshee had been as zippy as ever, and Claude was accustomed to driving like a maniac without getting a scratch on his car at all.

After bolting his breakfast down, Claude drove over to Joey's Garage, which had opened up early. Joey as usual, was lying under the BF Injection and fixing an exhaust. He noticed Claude, and grinned at him, giving him thumbs-up.

"All right, we're gonna hit the pay role van. It leaves the edge of Chinatown everyday. Bullets won't even dent the van's armour, so get a car and ram it off the road. Now hit it hard and the punk-ass security guards should bail. Then take it to the warehouse at the docks and my guys are gonna take over from there. Now it won't be doing its rounds all day, so don't hang around." Joey said.

Claude headed back to his Patriot, which he was pleased he had kept, at least for now. One of Blink 182's earlier songs was coming out of the radio, and Claude took that to pump him up a bit. He drove over to Chinatown, and circled about, but keeping a low profile, since the Triads would know about the hit that killed Chunky Lee Chong yesterday. Eventually, he found a blue Securiar van, and guessed this was the one. He waited till it turned at an intersection, then he barrelled straight into the van, sending it crashing into another car and nearly flattening it. The van, after dragging itself up, set off at a furious pace, but to no avail, as Claude cut corners and executed a nice P.I.T manoeuvre, another thing he had mastered at driving school. The Securiar crashed into a wall, and the security guards bailed, pulling out their pistols and firing at Claude's Patriot, to get squashed by the Hummer. Claude jumped out, and after doctoring the pistol ammo, jumped into the Securiar.

Unfortunately for him, the cops had been paying close attention following the heist a few days ago, and one cop car just happened to see him doing the crime, and requested backup. Claude cursed quietly as the cops began chase, and one of them leaned out and began firing. Smirking to himself, Claude knew that the van was bullet-proof, and the cop would simply be wasting ammo. However, the smile faded as two more cop cars came charging across. He quickly pulled his handbrake, and slid a 90-degrees turn. The cop car that was chasing him wasn't expecting the sudden action and slid right past him, smashing into the two other cop cars. Claude made a break, and took his chance, speeding through Chinatown again. He raced up a ramp leading to the train tracks, and jumped just under it, but the enthusiastic cop cars perhaps went with too much speed, and flew onto the train tracks, rolling over the other side.

With that, Claude raced away from them, and he quickly drove over to the docks to get his loot. The mechanics there quickly hooked up with the bank van's back, discovering overflowing piles of cash. The mechanics quickly set themselves upon it, and loaded a case of money for Claude, as he had been the one who had delivered it. Claude counted the piles of $100 bills one by one, and eventually, came up to be $20K, a jackpot. He waved goodbye to the mechanics and walked back onto the street.

It was then he realised that he didn't have a car. He flagged a taxi, and got the cabbie to drive back to his Patriot, where he could get his money and buy a new car. He'd seen a showroom named Easy Credit Autos, and decided to pay a visit there once he was done. He wrote on a piece of paper stuffed in his pocket "Drive me to Joey's garage in Trenton. I'll pay you double if you get there quick." The taxi driver nodded with his eyes wide at the money that Claude was showing him. He sped off and drove pretty well, and got to the garage, where Claude handed him his money and got out, driving in his Patriot over to Easy Credit Autos.

When he got there, after signalling to the clerk that he was mute, he was lead through the showroom.

"The Sentinel, a strong and classy family car, costs $15000…Kuruma, another four-door car, nimble, $16000…Blista, people-mover and very versatile…$20,000" the clerk stopped as Claude had his eyes caught on a blood-red Banshee.

"Oh, the Banshee. Polished paint-job, latest 2001 model. The fastest sports convertible in America…costs $35000-"the clerk barely finished before Claude was dangling two cases of cash in front of his eyes. He gulped as he counted the bills, and nodded.

"Okay, that's all yours…you can drive it straight out! Thanks for doing business!" the clerk grinned, and shook hands with Claude, tossing him the keys.

Claude smiled at the familiar buzz of the engine as he twisted the keys, and he sped off, waving at the clerk. Claude savoured the smell of the new sports car, as he drove over to Joey's. When he got there and pushed the door to get inside, he found Joey talking to a plump man with a scowling face, who was leaning on a Mafia Sentinel, which looked like it had just been fixed by Joey. Its steel-grey paintjob was glistening, and it looked almost brand-new.

"Yeah, I know Toni; I've tuned her real sweet. She purrs, you know what I mean?" Joey said to the man, and then spotted Claude.

"Oh. Here's the guy I was telling you about. All right, listen, this guy ain't Italian, and he's no mechanic but he can get things fixed." Joey told the man. He then walked over and introduced Claude to the person.

"This is Pops' Capo, Toni Cipriani." Joey said.

"Yeah, I'm Toni Cipriani." Toni replied.

"Take him to Mamma's restaurant in Saint Marks, all right? Now listen to me, I'm planning a job that needs a good driver, so drop by sometime later." Joey said.

"Okay, kid. Drive me to the laundry in Chinatown first. I got a bit of business to take care of. Those washerwomen ain't been paying their protection money. And watch the car, Joey just fixed this junk heap. So no fancy crap, okay?" Toni asked, and Claude nodded.

As they made their way towards the car, Claude's beeper rang, and it said something about El Burro wanting him for some work, if he wanted to come, to go to the phone in Hepburn Heights. Claude shrugged to himself, and once again, thoughts plagued him about Catalina, years back, she had called his old boyfriend Carl a few times to piss him off, but CJ hadn't given a crap, so she had eventually given up.

He moved into the smooth leather interior of the Mafia Sentinel, and drove over to the laundry quickly, without smashing the car. Toni was slightly impressed, but he got out, he told Claude:

"Wait here! Keep the engine running. This ain't a social call."

Claude nodded as Toni made his way inside the laundry with a baseball bat in his hands. There were two Triad gang members with pistols waiting, and they weren't too impressed, firing upon Toni, but missing. Toni shouted out a curse word as he charged back into the car.

"It's a Triad ambush! Get us out of here, kid!" he yelled.

The Triads charged out of the laundry and opened fire, but by then, Claude was already speeding away, cutting corners over to the restaurant.

"The Triads think they can mess with me, WITH ME! Drop by later, and we'll give them something to launder, their own blood-stained clothes!" Toni was furious, but he kept calm enough to hand Claude $3000 in cash.

Claude decided that he should drop by to see El Burro now for work. He drove over to the payphone in the Kuruma Toni had let him borrow, which was parked just outside the restaurant. When he got there, he found a note under one of the phones notifying him that if he picked up the phone, he would be called by a mysterious person. Knowing that this was probably El Burro, he grabbed the phone up and listened.

"This is El Burro of the Diablos. You're new in Liberty, but already you are gaining a reputation on the streets. There's a street race starting by the old school hall near the Callahan Bridge. Get yourself some wheels and whoever goes first through all the checkpoints wins the price," came a Hispanic voice.

Claude thought for a moment about preserving his new Banshee in good condition, and to use a Firetruck instead, but he didn't want to get a bad name in front of El Burro for cheap racing tactics, so he decided to use his Banshee. He drove over to the old school hall, where three Cheetahs were parked on the side of the street, drivers in them all waiting. One of them waved at Claude, and walked up and handed him a map.

"Hey, I'm Cesar Vialpando. Good to meet you, ese. I'd rather prefer my low-rider for this race, but I guess the Cheetah is a good car as well!" grinned the man, whom Claude seemed to remember from, somewhere back in the countryside of San Andreas.

"Okay, ese. I'm no Diablo, came here for a trip from my hood back in Los Santos, but I like racing, and I heard you're good. Best of luck, man." Cesar grinned, and Claude shook his hand.

Claude walked back and got inside his Banshee. The three other racers, Cesar and the two Diablos, got in their Cheetahs, ready to race. Another Diablo was calling the start. When he shouted "GO!" Claude and the three other racers sped off at a furious pace. Claude knew that his Banshee wasn't exactly as fast or turned as well as the Cheetahs, but he wasn't going to let that disadvantage him. He pulled inside a Diablo just as they reached the second turn of the race, and the driver tried a counter-attacking P.I.T manoeuvrer, only to slide out a bit late.

Satisfied with his start, Claude set about quickly keeping up with Cesar and the other Diablo, and eventually, he pulled off a perfect P.I.T manoeuvrer that sent the Diablo spinning into a wall. Claude raced ahead and followed Cesar carefully with inch-perfect turns and slides. As they moved back towards Chinatown, Claude and Cesar were matching each other, neck-to-neck. Claude pulled ahead with quick turns, and Cesar countered with some silky driving skills as they raced each other to the finish line. But with the finish line only a few turns away, Claude slipped inside Cesar's wide turn and stayed there for the rest of the race. As they crossed the finish line, Cesar got out and shook Claude's hand, disappointed.

"All right, ese, nice racing. I'll tell El Burro about this, then I'm gonna go on with my vacation! Here's your cash for winning." Cesar said, handing him a large fistful of cash, before driving off in his Cheetah, waving at Claude.

Claude was happy, and he decided to take a break before he went back to see Joey or El Burro.

Life in the city was getting better.


	5. Diabolical Destruction

**A/N: **Sorry people for the month-long wait! Slack amounts of homework and writer's block and sickness hasn't helped. Here's the next chapter-I guess I owe you lot it.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own GTA III, nor do I own Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) by Green Day.

Claude picked himself up, a bit groggy after his quick little nap. He changed into his old black jacket and green cargo pants, and he smiled at the money he had received from winning the race. He decided to visit Joey again, to see what his little 'job' was. He got inside his Banshee, and sped off over to Joey's garage. As usual, he found Joey by the BF Injection, polishing it and looking very pleased with himself.

"Beautiful! Just beautiful!" Joey was murmuring, but he stopped when he saw Claude.

"All right, just the guy I needed to talk to!" he grinned.

"There's a car stuffed with a stiff at the café near Callahan Point. One of the Forellis thought he was a wise guy, so he got what he had coming to him. Take the corpse to the crusher, all right?" Joey asked, slapping hands with Claude.

Claude smirked silently to himself as he made his way out, his shoes clunking on the concrete. He drove over to the only café he knew in Callahan Point, and noticed two cars parked, one a Sentinel, and the other was a Manana. The Sentinel seemed to be occupied, so Claude went over to the Manana and opened the trunk, to see a coffin lying there. Quickly slamming it shut; Claude ran to the door of the Manana and got in. He began to pull a quick exit out, only to realise what had happened.

The Sentinel next to the Manana was inhabited by a couple of Forelli men who were waiting for somebody to dispose of the corpse, and another one came racing into the carpark. Cursing to himself, Claude pulled a Spin 'N Go out of the car park, barely missing the other Forelli car. He quickly sped away, with the Sentinels following hot on his heels.

Claude knew he would have to lose the Forelli's before he could crush the car, so he dithered and dallied generally having a fun time weaving around the place. The Manana had poor handling and was slower than the Sentinel, but it could squeeze through gaps and was a decent car to weave around in. He had one of the Sentinels stuck between a gap, and the other chaser winded up having to go around, giving Claude enough time to quickly repaint his car and speed it over to the crusher, smiling as he watched the car get crushed into bits by the loud roar of the "True Grime Street Cleaners mechanical car crusher".

He stole a car, and drove his way back to Greasy Joe's, where he zipped back to Joey's for his $10K payment. Joey informed him that the job he was planning was a heist, and he suggested he dropped by a few days later. Claude happily left the garage, when he received a page from El Burro, telling him to get to the payphone for a job. He raced over to the payphone outside Misty's apartment eagerly, and answered the constant ringing of the phone. He was immediately greeted by the Hispanic voice.

"I started my _exotic entertainment business_ with nothing but the sizable contents of my leather pants! A gang of no-goods have threatened to remove my starring member if I don't pay them a cut." El Burro angrily said, but then his voice softened.

"They threatened the wrong man, amigo. They have a weakness for the ice cream. Pick up the bomb I've hidden in Harwood at Borgnine Taxis, hijack the regular ice cream van on its rounds. And lure these fools to their doom with the jingle-jingle. They hide in a warehouse on Atlantic Quays." El Burro finished.

Claude got inside his Banshee, and drove over to Borgnine Taxis in Harwood, where he found the package with a bomb and a detonator. After pocketing it, he stole the Borgnine Taxi parked, shaking his head at how stupid people could be. He drove his new taxi over to the Atlantic Quays, looking for an ice cream van. After a few minutes of searching, he heard the familiar jingle of the Mr. Whoopee as it made its way around. Claude knew it was an actual drug van, with ice cream to cover its real purpose. He got out of his taxi, followed the van until it stopped at a traffic light, then dragged out the driver and drove off, carefully following El Burro's instructions. When he got to the supposed place, he activated the bomb and took the detonator with him as he activated the jingle and looked for a hiding place.

Claude watched from behind a wall as the gang was lured by the chance to get drugs. He smirked evilly as he clicked the detonator, and there was a huge explosion, sending all of the men flying and the burnt frame of the Mr. Whoopee lay there. Claude grinned as he scavenged the bodies, picking up a shotgun and a powerful AK-47 assault rifle. He then headed into the warehouse that the gang members were in, plundering it and finding more ammunition and about $2000 in cash.

He jacked a Rumpo and decided to go get something to eat. He checked his Sumo Wordman, and noticed he had two new messages. One was from AmmuNation, indicating that the Uzi was back in stock, and the other one, was from El Burro, barely two minutes ago, telling him the combination to a briefcase of money next to the payphone and that another job was waiting for him. After grabbing some Fries, he went to retrieve his Banshee and get his job.

Claude was smiling to himself again as he unlocked the case of money with $4000, giving him a total of $6000. _These Liberty people pay well,_ he thought. Doing all those random jobs in the countryside usually netted him up to a maximum of $10000, and that was for a bank robbery. He picked up the phone, and listened carefully.

"Some insolent Triads stole my beautiful car last night, wrecked it and left it burning." El Burro said calmly, yet Claude could detect the anger in his voice.

"Some of my most precious donkey memorabilia was in the trunk – real collectibles that are irreplaceable my friend. I've hidden a throbbing weapon on the edge of Chinatown. Take it and teach these Triad vandals to feel El Burro's well-endowed wrath. Ariba!" he finished.

Claude drove over to the place where El Burro had hidden his 'throbbing weapon', and found a box. He peeled the box open, and grinned evilly as a flamethrower lay there, with several canisters of gas. He was surprised they had avoided detection, even if they had been placed only for a few hours or so. He heaved up the deadly weapon, and thought, _Time for some Triad toasting_.

He ran onto the street and looked for some Triads to kill. He found a group of them by the basketball, and he began spewing out flames from the flamethrower, and watched them scream as the flames burnt through them and they collapsed onto the ground. Claude shrugged, and he continued, chewing through wave after wave of Triads with his flamethrower. Eventually, he realised that he was going to be overwhelmed if he hung around, both by Triads and police attracted by the flames rising up. He dropped the flamethrower just as the gas canister clicked empty, and he made a run for his Banshee, diving inside and quickly speeding off.

Luckily for him, his hideout wasn't too far away, and he sped in and slid his Banshee neatly into his garage, before running into his hideout. He quickly caught the news, which was breaking the massacre he had just caused.

"Shocking news, with the massacre of over twenty gang members in Chinatown. People reported a man with a black jacket fleeing the scene."

Claude sighed as he stuffed his black jacket into the washing and changed into his tweed jacket, before going outside back to his Banshee. Another page for El Burro indicated that he had his money, but wouldn't need a job until further notice. Claude raced over to Hepburn Heights, nearly running over a group of Triads in the process.

He retrieved the case of money, worth of $10000, another whopper for what seemed to be a small-time gang. He decided to drop over to Toni's for a job or so, before knocking off for the day. But once again, there was the biting issue of Catalina still lingering in his mind as he drove over to Cipriani's Ristorante in St. Marks.

"_It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right. I hope you had the time of your life,_" came the lyrics from the radio.

_Yeah, sure_, thought Claude angrily. That bitch always had the time of her life while he did all the hard work that involved the killing, the racing. And then she took all that money.

He shook his head slowly as he walked up the stairs of the restaurant, immediately noticing the scowling man. He had heard about all the things that had happened to the Capo of the Leone Mafia since he returned to Liberty City in 1998, not as a high-rank, but much more of a gangster. He heard that he had even taken jobs with the Yakuza to get to the top of the tree, just underneath Salvatore. Yet now he didn't even look like he could hold a pistol. He acknowledged Claude without so much as a 'hi' and got him to sit down and detail his job.

"So the laundry won't pay any protection eh? The Triads think they can mess with me. Let's teach these would be tough guys what it means to be a tough guy!" he exclaimed, and stopped as his mother yelled a few choice words back.

"Sorry ma. Yes ma." Toni replied, and continued in a lower voice.

"I want you to destroy their laundry vans and mangle any triad gimp that gets in your way. 8-Ball can supply you with what you're gonna need." Toni tossed him the keys to his Kuruma, letting him borrow it.

Claude nodded and shrugged, as he made his way to the model of car he had made his escape to the hideout with. He drove over to 8-Ball's, where he was given several nice grenades, but he decided they would just be used to add to his collection of weapons, rather than for this mission. He drove over to Chinatown, and looked for a laundry van with "Mr Wong's Laundrette" on it. After a while, he found one, and he jacked it, before driving it into the water. One down.

From then on, it was basically fun as Claude went on rampaging van destruction. After poking out his head from the Kuruma window, he tossed a grenade onto the van, and drove away, watching it explode. He chased another one onto a ramp that lead onto the train tracks, and watched it get sent into a building, flaming in a screech of metal.

After collecting a hearty reward of $20000 from Toni's restaurant (to the displeasure of his mother), Claude received a page from Joey; the bank heist he was planning was going ahead tomorrow, and he wanted him to be there as early as possible for them to arrive just as the bank opened. Claude decided to get some early dinner, and a bed in time to wake up at about 5:30, in order to get to Joey's by 6am. He got back into his Banshee, and lazily drove over to Burger Shot with R&B music in his mind.

**End note: **Well, I finally got this one finished! It's the holidays, so I might be able to post a few more chapters sooner, depending on whether I want to work on it or not. Keep in touch, and please R&R!


	6. Cab Craziness

**A/N: **Looks around for a mob. I'm back, and the holidays haven't been much relaxing with assignments and plenty of homework to complement it. Haven't touched much fanfic works. Well, here's the next chapter. Oh, and I have delayed "Big N' Veiny" until further notice, as I haven't racked up any ideas for the mission to be doable.

Claude felt more alive then he had ever before since he had escaped to his freedom here in Liberty. He decided to get some clothes at PLAYERBMP and work out a bit, take a jog around the block before going to see Joey for his bank heist. He stuffed his pocket with some money, and made the drive over to PLAYERBMP, where he bought a black T-Shirt, some tracksuit pants, some sunglasses and a wallet. He drove back and dressed in them, before heading outside and jogging a few laps around the block. When he was done, he dressed back in his bomber jacket and headed outside.

It was a beautiful day. Claude calmly cruised along, but then he realised that he would need a four-door car to do the robbery. He sighed, as he was nearing Trenton and Joey's Garage. He headed knocked on the door, and the door slipped open, with Joey making his way back to the BF Injection. _How long does it take to fix that thing?_ Claude wondered. Joey must have been thinking the same thing, as he asked:

"What a ride she's gonna be, huh? All right, listen, get some wheels to the safe house at St. Marks and pick up a few friends of mine." Joey said, handing him a map.

"They're hitting a bank, and I gave my word that you were the man, so don't screw this up. Get them to the bank before five o'clock, not a minute later. Well, you have enough time anyway." Joey grinned, tossing him Claude keys to a spare Taxi he had stolen.

Claude inspected the cab carefully as he shuffled across into the driver seat. The seats were leather and smooth, but they didn't feel as relaxing as his new Banshee, the 2001 model, not the 1998 model he had before…well, that bitch caused it to be crushed into scrap metal. He turned on the ignition, and although the acceleration was nowhere near the Banshee's, the Sentinel had considerable turning. He remembered the famous bank heists of the past fifteen years, one led by Tommy Vercetti and Phil Cassidy in '86 Vice City, and another by the Triads on Salvatore Leone's very own casino, Caligula's Palace.

He shrugged and drove over to the hideout, where he honked his horn, and three men wielding AK-47s and shotguns appeared, dressed in suits and sunglasses, but with t-shirts underneath. They gave thumbs-up, and they told him to drive to the Bank of Liberty. Claude nodded, and quickly memorised directions to a Pay N' Spray as he drove.

The Sentinel pulled up next to the Bank of Liberty, with the paintwork shining in the sunlight hanging over Liberty City.

"Keep the engine running; we'll be in and out in no time," one of them told Claude, and they exited the car. Claude waited, and then he heard some screaming, before the robbers rushed out with a couple of bags of money.

"We didn't shoot anyone. Get us outta here!" yelled one of them.

Claude burnt rubber as cops sped towards them, and the men changed out of their suits and took off their sunglasses.

Cops were racing towards Claude, and he was about to get crunched. At the last moment, he finally pulled into reverse and dodged a couple of cop cars as they smashed into each other with a crunch. Claude sped around them as they attempted to get out of their little tangle, and managed to sneak through a gap as two cop cars attempted to roadblock him. He doubted that they would have blocked him anyway.

But as he raced into a narrow alleyway, the Taxi was confronted by a police car on the other side, and Claude jerked the steering wheel so hard that the taxi seemed to 'jump', and landed sideways against the wall. Suddenly having a completely pulsative reaction, he 'jumped' again, and the taxi was propelled up the wall, defying physics and flying into the air, landing on a building.

"Holy shit!" one of the robbers yelled.

Claude would have said that as well, but since he was mute, so he stayed quiet. He 'jumped' across to the opposite building, and he drove off the building, landing with a hard thud, only a turn away from the Pay N' Spray.

The Taxi quickly skidded into the paint shop, and Claude gave the paint guys a thumbs-up as they sprayed over the Taxi in blue paint. The men handed over ten $100 notes and an extra tip of $50, before Claude pulled out, grinning at the men.

After reaching the hideout without anymore trouble, and with Claude resisting the temptation to attempt some random cabbie stunting, the men counted out a case of money for him, and they took the rest for themselves, rushing inside eagerly to count their loot. Claude happily gazed at the lines of green, before he drove back to Joey's to retrieve his Banshee.

Joey paid him an extra $5K for his job, to go along with what he had received as the driver of the bank job, and Claude decided to see the Capo of the Leone Mafia, Toni Cipriani for more work after he had completed his first job on intimidating the laundry.

When he got to Cipriani's Ristorante, Toni was not there, but his mother approached him, smirking, and said:

"Toni's off making people bleed, or trying to. He'll never be as tough as his Pop, but he left a note for you on his table," she winked.

Claude headed over to the table where he usually sat with Toni, and saw an envelope. He peeled open and read:

"_The laundry has agreed to pay - you did real good kid! Go collect the cash and bring it back here. Watch out for the Triads. They may be shoving a firecracker up your ass, but don't take no crap. Nobody, I mean nobody, messes with TONI CIPRIANI!_" Claude smirked at Toni's hardcore crap, but he needed the money, so he walked out without any further notice, grabbing another drawn map on the way.

He got into his Banshee, and he followed his way over to the alleyway in Chinatown. He parked his Banshee on the street, and headed into the alleyway where he saw a case with Chinese writing on it. He grabbed it, and was about to move out of the alleyway when suddenly, two Triads appeared on either side of the alleyway, a laundry van and a Triad appeared and cut off the other two sides. They had ambushed him.

Cursing, Claude made a run for the laundry van, ducking under a bullet that whizzed oast his shoulder. He dragged the door open, shot the driver in the face, before he sped the van forward, and squished two Triads, before he stuck his Uzi out of the window and shot the last one. Sighing, he got out of the van, and headed back to his Banshee, glad to make a quick exit.

He returned to Cipriani's Ristorante, and he left the case of money, deciding to come back and collect the money later, but he decided to settle down for some lunch after an already hectic morning.


	7. Meeting The Don

**A/N: **Well, I guessed you guys deserved another chapter after the waiting so…yeah, here's the next chapter. Boy, running two stories is hard.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own GTA or anything to do with it (I wish I did!) However, I do own this fic.

Claude took the last bite of his Caesar wrap, and tossed the wrapper in the bin. After gulping down his Sprunk, he headed out of the store, quietly humming the "Old Spice" theme. Although he was mute, he could still hum, which was quite odd to many people.

He drove his Banshee over to Toni's, to check if he was there, and the Capo sure was there. He waved for Claude to come, giving him a case of money in the process.

"Don Salvatore has called a meeting. I need you to collect the Limo and his boy, Joey, from the garage. Then get Luigi from his club, come back here and pick me up, then we'll all drive over to the boss's place together." Toni said.

_So that's where he was_, Claude thought as he stood up.

"And oh-those Triads, they don't know when to stop. They want a war. They got a war. Now get going." Toni said.

Claude walked out onto the pavement, and he detoured his Banshee into his garage at his safe house, before jacking a van and driving over to Joey's Garage.

"How you doing?" asked Joey, grinning and dressed in his best suit, looking uncomfortable with the tie.

They moved over to a private garage door, and Joey opened it, revealing a sleek black Stretch limousine.

"Not bad, eh? Get in; you drive us to Luigi's." Joey said.

Claude carefully reversed out of the garage, and onto the street. Then with the most caution that he had ever used, he drove over to Luigi's Sex Club. Luigi and his assistant, Mickey were dressed in what looked like brand-new black Mafia suits. They got inside, and Luigi greeted Claude:

"How are you doing, kid?"

Claude gave a thumbs-up and drove over to Toni's restaurant, where he was waiting.

"Remember kid, now fancy crap." Toni warned as he got inside.

"Watch yourself, _Antonio_." Mrs Cipriani called.

Joey and Luigi chuckled to themselves: Toni hated being called that, his proper name.

But they didn't have much time to laugh about it. All of a sudden, two Triad vans appeared from the south of the restaurant, with a Triad peeking out with a pistol, shooting, realising this was a golden opportunity to take out the Leone Mafia's Capo, main driver and hitman, and two bosses. Claude cursed silently as he set off, with the vans in hot pursuit. Joey and Toni had both taken out Uzis form the glove department, and started taking pegshots at the chasing Triad Belly-Up vans. And they were horrible aimers as well, but they did barely enough to keep the vans cautious.

Finally, when a van drew close, Toni fired and flukily blew off the head of the Triad shooter with his bullets.

"Bleed mothers!" he shouted.

Claude smirked at what his mother would say at that crack, and continued forwards. He spotted the hill leading up to Salvatore's place up ahead, and knew that the slope would be the toughest thing to get through.

He took a detour instead, and turned to the right, along a flatter road, banging the Triad van into a few walls in the process. But the Triads had also formed a barricade leading to Salvatore's club as well, and Claude would need considerable luck to bust through it.

"Come on, kid, bust through the block. We can explain to the Don why we wrecked his limo and I can fix it in a flash." Joey said, ducking back inside to reload his Uzi.

Claude steadied the limo, and sped towards the block, crashing through the Triad line. The Triads, seeing that now they had missed their chance, had no choice but to retreat.

"We did it!" grinned Joey, placing the Uzi back in the glove department as Claude parked the limo into the garage.

"You did good back there, kid, real good. Come on; let's introduce you to the Don." Toni said as they walked up the stairs to Salvatore's Gentleman's Club.

After all the greetings, Salvatore Leone, the ageing Mafia Don, finally had Claude alone.

"I see nothing but good things for you, my boy…" Salvatore said.

"Anyway, I got a job for you, if you do fine, you might just get some work. Here, let's settle down here first and I'll tell you my little job."

Claude followed Salvatore over to where a couch and table were place, and Salvatore began.

"Me and the fellas need to talk business, so you're gonna look after my girl for the evening…HEY, MARIA, MOVE YOUR BUTT!" Salvatore yelled angrily.

"Dumb broad does this every time." Salvatore muttered as an Italian-looking woman with dark brown eyes appeared.

"And here she is the one and only Queen of Sheba! What were you doing up there, whatever it was, I bet it cost me money." Salvatore demanded.

"Well, you don't think I hang around for the conversation, do you?" she asked.

"Get in the car, and keep your big mouth shut! Take the limo but bring it back in one piece, you hear me? And watch her; she can be trouble." Salvatore warned Claude.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah! I'm sure your new lap dog has everything covered, and isn't he big and strong?" asked Maria sarcastically.

"Hey Fido lets go visit Chico and get some party treats! He's at the rail station at the Chinatown waterfront I think." Maria said.

Claude angrily walked her out to the recently-used limo, not very happy at being called "Fido". What did she think he was, some sort of dog? He waited for her to get in, and set off to the waterfront, eventually skidding to a halt next to Maria's regular drug dealer.

"Her Maria! It's my favourite lady! You looking for some fun? A little…hmm? Some SPANK?" Chico asked, offering her some drugs.

"Hi, Chico. Nah, just the usual." Maria replied, shaking her head.

"Here you go lady." Chico said, handing her some drugs.

"Hey, maybe you should check out the warehouse party at the east end of Atlantic Quays." Chico added as Maria headed for the limo.

"Thanks, Chico. See you around."

"Gracias and enjoy, that's good stuff." Chico waved to Maria.

"Come on, Fido, let's go and check out this party!" Maria told Claude as she climbed back inside.

Shaking his head to himself, Fido drove over to the Atlantic Quays, and eventually pulled up to a warehouse with loud music blazing form the inside.

"All right, Fido, you wait here and look after the car while I go and shake my butt, all right?" asked Maria.

Claude shrugged as she got out of the car, and ran inside.

Claude waited for about half an hour, but then, he heard something in the distance. And they were getting closer. _Sirens_, he thought. Shit. The cops, maybe, to try and bust up the party? He spun the limo in the direction for a quick escape.

And sure his prediction was right. A couple of SWAT Enforcer vans and three police cars appeared, and the cops came out and began shooting at the warehouse entrance. Mafia men began to come out with AK-47s and began shooting, and Maria rushed out, and dived into the limo.

"Get going!" she squealed.

Claude needed no obligation: he sped off around the police convoy, and he burnt rubber all the way back to Salvatore's Club.

As they made their way up the steps of the large house, Maria suddenly stopped.

"You know, I enjoyed myself for the first time in a long while, and you treated me really good. With respect and everything. Oh, I'd better go. I'll see you around, I hope." Maria said, and she headed up the stairs.

Salvatore was very pleased with Claude's work.

"Hey, well done, boy. You look tired; get some sleep in one of my rooms." Salvatore said.

Claude gladly accepted his offer.


	8. Raining Mackerel

Sleep refreshes the old brain, and Claude certainly knew that as he picked himself up from the bed in Salvatore's house. He dressed up, and headed downstairs to find Maria arguing with Salvatore bitterly. Claude grinned to himself, and continued towards them.

The Don noticed him, and called:

"Hey, kid!"

Claude sat himself down on one of the chairs, and he couldn't help noticing Maria gazing at him.

"Good work there last night, kid. I need you to do a job for me today, and I heard Toni wanted a few errands as well. Leave us alone for a minute." Salvatore said, telling Maria.

Maria walked off, and Claude felt himself going slightly red, as she was still staring at him.

"Now the Columbian Cartel-"began Salvatore, and Claude's eyes lit up in the anticipation of hitting his former gang.

"-is making SPANK somewhere in Liberty. But we don't know where, and they seem to know everything we're doing, before we do. We got us a rat!" Salvatore exclaimed, banging his fist on the table.

"There is a guy named Curly Bob, who works the night shift at the bar at Luigi's. He's been throwing around more money than he's earning. He ain't pimpin' or pushin', so he must be talking. He usually gets a taxi home after work. So follow him. And if he's ratting us out, kill him!" Salvatore exclaimed.

Claude nodded and he walked outside, borrowing one of the Don's Mafia Sentinels. The gang car was sleek in design, and once again, even though not as quick as the Banshee, probably the fastest car on the market behind the Cheetah and Yakuza Stinger that he had heard of, handled brilliantly, as Claude found out driving off towards Luigi's Sex Club.

When he got there, he parked his Mafia Sentinel, and noticed a Taxi waiting outside the club, with the driver sitting there. Quickly, Claude realised he didn't even need to follow him, and risk the chance of spooking out Curly Bob. He ran over to the taxi, pointed his Uzi at the driver, and he obliged, shaking with fear as he got out. Claude pulled out a few notes, $400, probably more than what he made every day, and handed them over to the driver and he immediately brightened up, rushing off.

Claude settled down into the cab, and waited eventually, for Curly Bob to come out.

"Portland Harbour, Dock 17." Curly said.

Claude had an idea of where that was, so he nodded silently, and turned on the money counter, before driving off. Not that he needed the money anyway.

He drove carefully over to Portland Harbour, and stopped suddenly when he caught sight of somebody. Catalina, that crazy bastard. Claude's eyes narrowed, but he let Curly Bob out. It turned out he was ratting, and he walked over to Claude's former girlfriend, and a Columbian man that Claude had seen before, but didn't know his name. Claude got out of his taxi, and he followed Curly, eventually hiding behind some boxes to eavesdrop on the conversation.

"Here comes our little friend, Mr Big Mouth himself." Claude heard the man say in a thick Columbian accent.

"Were you followed, you know what goes on here is our little secret, amigo." Catalina said.

Claude felt the strong urge to pop out and shoot Catalina in the face. Instead, he peered out to look.

"No, no, I wasn't followed. You got my stuff?" asked the wimpy voice of Curly Bob, sniffing.

"Here's your SPANK, squealer, now talk!" demanded Catalina, shoving a handful of drugs into Curly's hand. Claude only just recoiled from pulling out his shotgun and charging out, when he noticed four Cartel members with M16s come out.

"Okay, so the Leone's are fighting a war on two fronts, they are in a turf war with the Triads with no sign of either side giving up. Meanwhile, Joey Leone has stirred up some bad bloods with the Forelli's. Every day, they're losing men and influence on the city. Salvatore is becoming dangerous and paranoid. He suspects everybody and everything." Curly spoke, wanting to get it over and done with.

Catalina snorted and said:

"With loyalty like yours, what has he possible got to worry about," she said, laughing as she headed back to the Speeder that she had come on, with the man and the four guards following.

Curly Bob turned, and was happily satisfied with his work. He was getting paid the valuable drug SPANK, plus money to rat out the Leone Family. The only thing that worried him was if the Leone Family found out; the taxi driver had already looked suspicious. But as he turned around, he found out. The last thing Curly ever heard was the blast of a shotgun before everything went black as he collapsed in a pool of his own blood, blood pouring from several holes in the back of his head.

Claude looked at him, and he spat on his body, kicking him a few times, before grabbing the ammo and a small box of shells for his shotgun. He also lazily emptied the packet of SPANK all over the rat's body. When he was done, Claude headed back to his taxi, back to Salvatore's for maybe another job and even a pay check.

"What'd you do to him, kid?" asked the Don as Claude knocked on the door of his club.

Claude made a gesture of shooting Curly Bob.

"Well, I'm glad you kicked the hell out of that rat. Here's your cash; Toni wanted you to drop by for some dirty work; when you're done with him, come back to me for another job later on."

Claude nodded as he took the roll of cash that Salvatore had counted out for him, before heading outside to his taxi, which he drove back to Luigi's Club, to retrieve the Mafia Sentinel and park in his garage before jacking another car and heading over to Toni's restaurant.

Of course, his Banshee was still there, but there was no sign of the Cipriani's regular family Kuruma parked outside the restaurant. Before Claude headed in, he thought he heard some shooting in the distance. As Claude headed inside, Toni's mother once again said:

"Oh. It's you. Toni ain't here, but he left one of his sugary love-"she began, but Claude cut her off by pointing a shotgun at her. He also noticed two Mafia guys holding Uzis, and they shrugged.

She stormed off, tossing over a letter to him. Claude, sighing, slowly peeled open the envelope and read:

"We're at WAR. The Triads have a fish factory as a front. Most of their business goes down at the fish market in Chinatown. That laundry still owes us protection. They reckon the Triads are protecting them now, so I say we exact a fitting punishment. Take these boys over and whack the Triad warlords! Well, if you get a chance, pop some of their soldiers too."

Claude wrapped up the letter, and he walked out of the restaurant, with the two Mafia men trailing behind, flexing their Uzis.

"Okay, mute man; the first warlord is in a protected walkway in the middle of Chinatown. You know, the place where that noodle guy used to have his stand," the first man said.

Claude nodded, and he borrowed one of the spare Sentinels, and drove off over to Chinatown.

Chinatown was a war zone. The Triads and Mafia were going right at it, against each other. Mafia men were firing desperately to hold back lines of Triads, with shotguns and pistols alike, while wave after wave of Triads came after the Mafia, hoping to overwhelm the Mafia with numbers. They weren't doing well either, getting cut down pretty quickly.

"Okay, roll over, and we'll pop some heads in a drive-by," the second man said.

Claude drove near the sidewalk, and the men opened the windows and sprayed with their Uzis. They cut down several Triads, before Claude quickly pulled out after a group of Triads opened fire on the Sentinel. He sped towards the enclosed area, which was heavily guarded, and the Mafia presence here was low, as it was the middle of Chinatown.

"Take us for a few passes," the second man said.

Claude sped past the enclosed area, quickly pulling a U-Turn, and heading back the other way, with the Mafia men shooting as he sped towards the enclosed area. As he roared past at a blinding speed, he saw a gush of blood as one of the men yelled in triumph.

"Got him! Nice driving, man!"

"Okay, the Raffles Fish Market is our next target."

Claude quickly sped over to the market, dodging a few Triad Belly-Up Vans. As he neared the market, he spotted the Triad Warlord, holding an Uzi and surrounded by three guards. He switched to the sidewalk, and he raced towards them, running straight over them with a squish.

"Haha! Roadkill!" yelled the first man, clearly enjoying himself.

"One more warlord the Capo wants us to pop; the Triad fish factory. Hey; that Triad fish truck is empty, let's steal it and we can get into the factory."

The three of them headed towards the van, Claude shooting a couple of Triads on the way.

"I'll go back," one man volunteered.

He settled into the back of the truck, and they drove off to the factory, safely through Triad territory, as the Triads didn't realised they were Mafia men.

When they got there, they parked on the side of the factory, and Claude pulled out his AK-47, and he climbed over the wall for a moment, but that was enough for him to fire a burst straight into the warlord's head.

"BOOM! HEADSHOT! Okay, let's get the hell out of here!" yelled the man in the side seat, switching to the driver seat.

Claude quickly leapt off the wall, and he dived into the side seat, readying his AK-47 as the Mafia driver raced off. A couple of Triad trucks had already begun to tear after them. Claude blew out two tyres of one of them, and it skidded off balance, and ran into a wall.

After eventually outwitting the other van, Claude pulled outside the restaurant, and the three men got out, all puffing and exhilarated with the action.

"Nice work back there, man," the first man puffed.

They headed up the stairs of the restaurant, and Toni was talking on a phone.

"Okay…so the warlords have been whacked… WHAT? They're still not agreeing to pay their protection? Even though we blew the hell out of them?" Toni said a bit more, and then he slammed the phone down, noticing Claude.

"Okay, I've had enough of this shit. We're gonna finish the Triads in Liberty, once and for all. 8-Ball's rigged a dustcart with a bomb. It's on a timer so if you mess up there'll be no evidence. Go and pick up the dustcart. Careful, 8-Ball says it's real sensitive and the slightest bump could set that thing off! Their fish factory will open its gates for a dustcart, so you can drive right in. Park up between the gas canisters and get the hell out of there! I want it to rain mackerel! We're talking real biblical here, nothing low budget." Toni smirked.

Claude waved goodbye to the two Mafia men, before setting off to 8-Ball's bomb shop.

"Hey man." 8-Ball greeted his old pal.

"I heard that Toni was pissed, and he prepared this little dustcart for you to blow the hell out of the Triads. Well, good luck, but watch that thing; it'll detonate if you bump it too much. The thing's gonna blow up in two and a half minutes after you turn on the engine, okay? So make it quick, brother." 8-Ball clapped hands with Claude, before he headed back to his shop, waving at Claude. Claude waved back as he headed over to the Trashmaster. He thought he might've known a shortcut to the fish factory through the tunnel behind 8-Ball's shop, and he decided to take a risk.

He turned on the engine, and he quickly reversed out of the garage. Well, at least as quickly as he could. The Trashmaster was the hardest thing he had ever driven. But maybe the one that was harder was when he had to steal some random oil Tanker for a government agent or something…some random guy called Toreno. He quickly focused on driving as he went through the tunnel, emerging and quickly turning right, emerging next to SupaSave. He cut across back onto the road, and he was on a path that he knew well, and the timer only showed 2:10.

He drove on, and he was soon at the gates of the Triad fish factory. True to Toni's word, the factory opened to the Trashmaster, and Claude drove slowly, parking it next to the gas canisters at Toni had requested him to do.

_0:40_ read the timer as Claude got out of the rubbish truck, and made a run for the gates. Too late. The Triads had spotted him, and they opened fire on his position. The gates rumbled to a close. Claude cursed silently, and he did a complete spin, before running to a side wall. He took a deep breath, and he leapt up the wall with all his might, getting up and nearly flipping over as he moved his legs up just in time to see a bullet strike the wall. He quickly dropped down, and continued running. About ten seconds later, he had to cover his ears as there was a huge explosion that came from behind him, and a ripple of sound warped the air.

Suddenly, it was over. Claude peered over the wall, at the former fish factory, which was now in ashes with dead Triads and the smell of death hanging in the air. Fires were burning, and Claude heard sirens in the distance. He quickly sneaked out and pretended to be walking on the street. He hailed a taxi for him to get back to Cipriani's Ristorante.

Claude had never seen Toni so pleased.

"Well done, my boy, you did a number on those Triad losers. Here's your cash: take a rest, I heard the Don wants you to do some work." Toni said, happily giving him a large briefcase of money.

Claude Speed was a very happy man as he headed to his Banshee, and drove back to his hideout.

**End note: **Woot, I'm done for this chapter! School work and studying for our yearly exams have stalled me a bit, but I'm glad I've got it out. Hopefully, the next chapter should be out soon. Keep the reviews coming!


	9. Fireworks Show

**A/N: **Yeah, yeah, been a while, settle down. And of course, I do not own GTA or any of its characters. Neither do I own Playstation or Metal gear Solid, which I kind of make fun of in this chapter. Sorry to this who will be offended.

Claude drained the last of the can of Coke, before lazily dropping it to the ground and kicking it, watching it rebound against a wall and into a bin. He headed back to his Banshee, and drove off to Salvatore's Club; looking expectant at the 'job' the Don wanted to do.

He pulled up at Salvatore's house, and knocked on the door. The Don looked angry at something, but he regained his composure, and told Claude to sit down with him, and said:

"The Cartel has got bottomless funds from pushing that SPANK crap. If we make an open attack on them, they'll wipe the floor with us. They must be making SPANK on that big boat Curly led you to. So we gotta use our heads, or rather, one head. Your head." Salvatore smirked.

"If you do this for me, you will be a made-man, anything you want. Go and see 8-Ball, you'll need his expertise to blow up that boat." Salvatore said.

Claude sighed to himself. He didn't trust Salvatore's promises of him being a made-man; he'd heard that some random guy who had become a made-man had gotten shot in the back of the head, and Toni, at danger from the police, had to dump his body in the river.

Claude drove his Banshee over to the demolitions expert. He knocked on the door, and found 8-Ball intensely playing "Metal Gear Solid" on his Playstation.

"Die, you goddamn stupid guards! Shit!" 8-Ball shouted, as Snake fired his Famas before he got killed.

Claude wanted to tell him that Metal Gear Solid was supposed to be a stealth game, not a Rambo-style FPS.

8-Ball noticed him first, and gave an embarrassed grin.

"Yo my man! Salvatore phoned ahead, but a job like this is gonna need a lot of fireworks. I'll need $100,000 to cover expenses-"8-Ball said, but paused briefly at Claude's stunned look.

"-but you know with me, you get a lot of bang for your buck. Come back brother when you have the money." 8-Ball said, slapping Claude at the back, before heading back to his Playstation.

Shaking his head as soon as he got out of 8-Ball's sight, Claude headed back to his hideout, and he tipped several cases of money into one large briefcase, before driving back to 8-Ball's. 8-Ball answered the door, a grin plastered over his face, and Claude noticed a "MISSION COMPLETE" on his TV screen. He handed over the case of money.

8-Ball's eyes widened at the lines of green, and he handed the case back, laughing.

"I was just testing you, mate; you know I have enough explosive to blow the crap out of that ship." 8-Ball chuckled, before heading back inside.

A couple of minutes later, 8-Ball came out, a box of explosives in his hands along with a detonator and a sniper rifle.

"Okay, let's do this thing. I can set this baby to detonate, but I still can't use a piece with these hands." 8-Ball said, ruefully looking at his bandaged hands. He tossed the sniper rifle over to Claude.

"Here, this rifle should let you pop some heads!" he exclaimed.

They shoved the explosives into the trunk, and they drove over to the ship. As they parked the sports car next to some trucks, 8-Ball lugged the explosives out, and the two of them took cover behind a wall.

"Okay, man, I'll activate the detonator when you pop the first guard." 8-Ball said.

Claude moved his way up to the top of a building overseeing the ship, and peered through the scope of the sniper rifle. He had a quick look at the guards he could find. They were scattered all over the ship, but Claude decided starting from the left would be the best idea. He aimed for one man's melon, and there was a loud crack as the man slumped down, blood pouring from a hole in his head.

Claude cursed as he pulled the bolt back for another round. This thing needed a silencer. Another man dropped, felled by a powerful .50 round. 8-Ball began to run towards the ship, his initial path cleaned up by Claude.

As 8-Ball headed up the planks to the ship, two more men dropped; one shot straight through the heart and the other pegged by Claude's third headshot. The guards were confused, and they took a while to react before finally beginning to open fire on 8-Ball's position. Luckily for 8-Ball, they were horribly inaccurate, and Claude picked off one just as 8-Ball headed up some stairs, getting closer to some explosive barrels. He ducked behind some cover as Claude fired, pulled, fired, pulled, and then fired again. Three more men dropped, one falling into the water. 8-Ball sprinted, diving to avoid a few bullets coming his way. He dropped the explosive, grabbing what looked like a case of money, before quickly setting the time detonator to thirty seconds, and began sprinting for his life.

Claude covered him skilfully, picking off guard after guard as if there was no tomorrow. 8-Ball ran down the stairs just as the first of his explosives exploded, setting half of the ship alight. The second explosion occurred about twenty seconds later, and another huge explosion all of Portland must have heard rocked the ship, just as 8-Ball threw himself into a dive. He slid slowly off the ship, just as the plank broke, and the ship slowly began to sink down.

Claude was grinning broadly as he rushed up to 8-Ball. They high-fived, and then they opened the case to reveal line after line of 100-dollar notes. They split the cash up between the two of them.

After a cruise back to 8-Ball's place, 8-Ball got out.

"Damn, I'm drained. Catch you later, brother!" 8-Ball shouted as he headed back into his cabin, and Claude thought he heard somebody like Liquid Snake shouting.

Claude decided it was time for a break for him as well, and he headed back to his hideout, $50000 richer.

He fell asleep within an instant.


	10. New Quarters

Claude awoke pretty quickly, eager to get his reward for doing the job. He entered his Banshee, and drove over to Sal's house.

The Don was smiling widely, pretty happy, Claude supposed, from the recent destruction of the drug ship.

"It's my favourite cleaner!" Salvatore greeted Claude.

"I'm proud of you, my boy, you kicked the shit outta those greaseballs. I've got just one little job for you before we can all celebrate. There is a car around the block from Luigi's club. The inside is covered with _brains_." Salvatore said, making a disgusted face.

"We had to help some guy make up his mind…and it proved a little messy. Take it to the crusher before the cops find out." Salvatore said.

Claude was slightly suspicious of this latest deed. He had overcome the Cartel, laid waste to one of the main sources of SPANK in this city, and now was given a job that just required picking up a car and driving it to the crusher? As he drove over into the gloom of the Red Light District, his pager beeped.

"This is Maria. The car is a trap! Meet me at the docks at Callahan Point."

As Claude read this message, he felt as if a huge bucket of cold wat6er had been emptied over him. He couldn't believe it. The Leone Mafia, after all he had done, was now selling him out? Before he could digest this fully, his pager beeped again.

"Brother. It's 8-Ball. Salvatore's trying to sell you out, he's already stolen one of my own bombs! Meet me at my shop, we'll arrange something," the message relayed to Claude. Shaking his head, he got into his Banshee, and drove over to 8-Ball's bomb shop.

He knocked on the door of 8-Ball's cabin, and when it opened, Claude pointed a pistol at 8-Ball's head.

"Hey, steady there, brother!" 8-Ball shouted.

Claude was pretty pissed, and he wasn't withdrawing his gun.

"Just sit down, and I'll explain everything!" 8-Ball exclaimed.

Claude sighed, and settled down on 8-Ball's couch.

"All right. It started when we had a meeting at Sal's, a few days before we hit that Cartel ship. Salvatore was pissed at you, for a reason I don't know. He wanted me to give him one of his bombs to blow you up, except I refused, so like I said, Salvatore probably got one of his goons to break in, and readied the bomb so he could use it once he was done with you." 8-Ball said.

Claude slowly pulled the gun away from his head.

"I'm going to have to get the hell out of here. Look, I found out that my page was put on hold, and was it Maria who paged you?" asked 8-Ball.

Claude nodded slowly.

"She'll get you some transportation to Staunton Island…the bridge is nearly fixed anyway. Good luck, brother." 8-Ball said, as he went and grabbed a box of his explosives.

Fifteen minutes, Maria was explaining to Claude what was going on.

"Listen, Salvatore thinks we're going behind his back. So he was offering you to the Cartel, in order to make a deal." Maria said, her voice shaking.

Claude was furious; how the hell did Catalina find out he was still alive? He continued to listen intently though.

"I couldn't let him do that; I mean the worst thing is…it's my fault. I told him we were an item, don't ask me why, I don't know!" she whined, not knowing anything to say, before hanging her head in shame.

Maria abruptly stopped as a short Japanese woman wearing black walked over.

"This is a friend of mine, okay, she's an old friend. She's called Asuka; she's someone we can trust." Maria stuttered.

"Come on, enough of the speeches." Asuka said softly.

"We better get out of here before we get more hysterical Italians wanting less friendly reunions," she said, rolling her eyes as Claude followed her over to a boat.

It was a Reefer, a party boat that Claude hadn't seen for god who knows how many years. Claude jumped onto it, Asuka and Maria following him. They made their way through the rocky waters of Liberty City Harbour across to Staunton Island. Claude stopped for a moment to gaze out at the island he hadn't been on…well, since the bridge blew up.

They parked the Reefer next to a police boat and a Speeder, and made their way up the stairs leading down to the dock, heading over to a large condo.

"Asuka and I are gonna have to talk…eh, why don't you go and cruise around?" Maria asked as they entered the condo, to reveal a luxurious garden and pool. There were French doors providing an entrance to the interior of the house.

"You'll need a place to lie low." Asuka advised Claude, then walked over to a table and handed him a map.

"There's a warehouse at the edge of Belleville that should suit your needs. Come back to my condo when you are ready, and we can have a little chat." Asuka said.

Asuka tossed Claude the keys to her Yakuza Stinger, and handed him some cash. Claude walked over to the sleek sports car, and drove off. The Yakuza gangcar had beautiful handling, top acceleration and Claude was enjoying himself as he pulled up next to the warehouse Asuka had told him about. There was an automatic garage which opened for him, and there was an elevator leading up to his hideout. He headed inside, went to the toilet, before pulling out his Sumo Wordman.

He messaged 8-Ball about driving over to Portland and helping him unload some stuff. A couple of minutes later, 8-Ball's reply came. He told him to get a taxi over to Portland. Claude was curious, but then, coming from his Sumo Wordman, beeped a newsflash; in all the business that had encircled Claude since his escape from justice, the Callahan Bridge had just been finalised and it was ready for traffic. He hailed a taxi for him to drive over to his hideout. Once he was there, he waited for 8-Ball.

8-Ball pulled up in a large truck, and Claude was ready, passing him a note, then handing him the money that he had managed to squeeze into three cases, along with some clothes and all his other belongings.

"So, you want me to drive it over to that warehouse on the edge of Bellerive for you?" 8-Ball asked.

Claude nodded, then scribbled that he was going to deposit his Banshee for transportation to Staunton.

"Okay, brother, but I'm going to have to take it easy, the back's packed with explosives." 8-Ball said, winking.

He drove his Banshee over to one of the last of the ferry services, mainly used for daily trips to transport goods and vehicles over to Staunton Island. As soon as the car was loaded up, he jumped in the passenger seat next to 8-Ball.

"Steady up, brother, it's going to be a long ride." 8-Ball said.

Claude nodded, and he took his Uzi out of his pocket, readying it just in case they got hit by any police.

As it turned out, they were attacked. But not by the cops, but by the Cartel.

"Oh shit, brother. Shoot the hell outta here!" 8-Ball yelled as he frantically drove off.

Claude peeked out of the window and spotted three Cartel Cruisers coming, with Columbians sitting at the back with AK-47s. As the first one popped up to shoot at them, Claude hit him with three bullets, knocking him back and off the vehicle. The second one fired off a burst, but only one managed to ping and connect with the truck, before Claude dispatched him. The third person unloaded a full clip, but to 8-Ball and Claude's relief, he missed every shot. As he attempted to duck and reload, Claude sent several bullets into his brain.

8-Ball was now getting rammed around a bit by the Cartel Cruisers. Claude managed to shoot through the windows and take out one, but the truck wasn't going to take much more. 8-Ball was putting it through its paces, and it was a miracle there hadn't been an explosion yet. As Claude shot another driver, the truck began to start spitting out a bit of grey smoke, but thankfully, Claude killed the last driver just as quickly.

They were still letting a sigh of relief as they parked at 8-Ball's new premises, where he quickly unpacked his Playstation and settled down. He stored his explosives in a back room.

"Hey, man, drop back later, we can talk." 8-Ball called, as he waved Claude goodbye.

Claude drove back to his hideout, and when he was done unloading his things and cash, he quickly fell asleep.


	11. Reincarnation

Claude woke up an hour later, sweating furiously, and suddenly, his life wasn't looking so bright now. A few hours ago, he thought he would have been a made-man in the Leone Family, with probably all the money and respect he needed to gain revenge on Catalina, but now, he was a wreck. The Mafia were now after him, and he had to trust somebody he didn't even know.

Sighing, Claude drove his Yakuza Stinger over to the ship that had just arrived, storing his Banshee. He paid some random guy on the street some money to follow him and drive the Banshee back to his garage, before he made a visit to the nearest PLAYERBMP, and also the AmmuNation to get some Uzi ammo. After all that business, it was now late in the afternoon, and Claude finally decided to see Asuka.

Asuka was waiting for him, getting up from a chair and walking out to face him. Maria waved at Claude as he walked over.

"We have certain issues to clear up before we can continue any form of relationship, business or _otherwise_." Asuka said, smirking, and making Claude feel a bit uneasy.

"Let's lay our cards on the table. I am Yakuza, and I know you worked for Salvatore Leone's family. I can give you work with our organization, but first, you must prove to me that your ties with the Mafia are truly broken. Salvatore Leone will be leaving Luigi's in about three hours time." Asuka said, and her eyes narrowed.

"_Make sure he doesn't reach his club alive_," she said, with the eyes of a hungry predator.

"Meanwhile Maria and I will catch up on old times." Asuka said, turning to Maria who was reclining back.

"Oh, Asuka, you've got a massager." Maria called.

"That's not a massager…" Asuka grinned as Claude headed outside.

Claude decided that since he had three hours to prepare for the hit, he would get some explosives, and made a drive over to 8-Ball's shop. 8-Ball, as usual, was playing on his Playstation, apparently, on the last mission of "Metal Gear Solid" now, and he was now in a deep fight with Liquid Snake. He shook his head in frustration as he died for probably like the tenth time. Claude wanted to tell him that he should continually punch the crap out of him, rather than try to run around the place.

"Hey, man, what you up to? If you wanted a few bombs, I've got a large bag full of them; you can wire them to a car if you need to." 8-Ball said, as he reloaded the game.

Claude headed over to the back of his garage, and he lugged five bombs, and managed to squeeze them into the trunk of the Banshee. He waved goodbye to 8-Ball, who was too busy playing to notice him.

After he had got back to his hideout to grab a sniper rifle and an AK-47, which he strapped over his back, with an orange hoody over it. He decided that he would take a reconnaissance drive around Portland. He stole a Kuruma, a less conspicuous car, and he decided to pay a visit to Salvatore's Club. He pulled up on the street, and sneaked through the entrance, hiding behind a tree before peeking around, and found himself with a clear view of Salvatore's house. There were four Mafia Sentinels parked there, and he could hear distant voices laughing. He pulled out the sniper rifle, and scoped out three Mafia men, sitting on the couch and smoking cigars. They were carrying shotguns and Uzis.

Sighing, Claude pulled out his sniper rifle. He loaded a clip into it, and aimed the scope at one of the men. There was a crack, and quickly, Claude waited for another bullet to come, and fired again. Two men slumped down, pouring blood onto a table. The third one dived behind a couch, and five more men came inside the room, this time, with formidable AK-47 assault rifles. Claude cursed as they rushed outside, along the dirt path. Claude fell two of them as they charged towards his hidden position. As the clip clicked empty, he dropped it quietly, tore off the strap, and pulled out his AK-47, blasting the three others into oblivion.

Claude spat on the corpses, and blocking his nose, extracted the shotgun and AK-47 ammo from the pockets of the dead men. Frowning, he turned back to his Kuruma, and lugged out the four bombs, slowly managing to hook them up to the engine safely, with the club now cleared out any hostiles.

An hour later, Claude finally rose, sweating from spending the time to find the wires that would trigger the bomb when the engine was turned on, and connecting the bomb to the actual cars. But it was work well done. With Salvatore's likely protection knocked out, this meant he could get a clear shot and make an escape without having to be chased at by Mafia Sentinels. Claude drove off to get some dinner, before readying himself to end the longstanding Don of the Leone Family's life.

Claude took his time, picking a rather expensive restaurant. He ordered some boneless chicken with special deluxe sauce, some cabaret wine, and orange parfait. He remembered meals much like this, with…no, that crazy bitch didn't need to interfere right now, Claude thought. He wiped his mouth with a serviette, gave the restaurant owner an extra tip, before he walked back to his Kuruma.

He shot a glance at his clock. His meal had taken longer than he thought, and there was half an hour to get in position for the hit. He pulled out the sniper rifle, ejected the empty clip that he had used to shoot out the Mafia gunmen, and loaded a new one, thinking in his head: "_Time to die, Salvatore. You screwed me over; you're going to pay for it."_

Salvatore Leone made his way out of the fine skin flick club, surrounded by ten guards, and stuffed full with a luxury meal and having seen strippers to some of their stuff. Although the man was refreshed, and healthy, he had other things on his mind. The car that his men had planted in order to kill their old cleaner who had been messing with his girlfriend Mara, who had now also disappeared, was found completely unscathed, and no sign of him nearby. Salvatore was worried that he had been tipped off and was seeking revenge.

His worst fears were confirmed as he walked out of the alley from the back door, and he saw one person that none of his guards saw. That person, made his stomach turn to ice and he went almost white.

Claude's angry face peering through the sniper rifle was the last thing Sal saw before a bullet struck him in the head, and blew his brains out. Only he would know the secret of who had killed him, and that, was what he was going to take to the grave.

Claude withdrew the sniper rifle from his eyes. The Mafia men remained frozen for a moment, as their boss slumped to the ground in a pool of blood. He quickly walked down the stairs that were across the alleyway from Luigi's Sex Club, using the major distraction as an escape tool, getting inside his Kuruma and driving off. As he turned into Chinatown, Claude couldn't believe how calm he had just been. He had simply strolled to a sniping position, killed the man who had not so long ago received him in open arms, and made a lazy escape.

Claude yawned as he passed over the Callahan Bridge. It was getting quite late now, and Claude was looking forward to his payment and a good night's sleep. He decided to do something crazy, and instead of driving around to get to Asuka's condos, he simply bumped off the side of a bridge, landing neatly down below and it was a short drive to the condos.

Asuka was smiling brightly as one smartly-suited man was heading out of the room. Maria was reclining back, watching something on Asuka's television.

"My Yakuza informant has just told me of the Don's assassination. It's going to be all over the criminal underworld in Liberty City. You have done well, and therefore, I shall reward you well. Kazuki…" Asuka called, and Claude raised his eyes. Kazuki Kasen had been killed by somebody working for his wife, who apparently had not been much of a supporter of him.

Asuka noticed Claude's expression, and said:

"The other Kazuki Kasen wasn't my brother…"

Claude quickly nodded as a black-robed man came down the stairs, holding a case of money and handing it to Asuka.

"Drop by later, I might have another job for you…" Asuka said as Claude left the condo.

Claude Speed was a happy and satisfied man as he left the condo belonging to one of the Yakuza leaders.

**End note: **Another chapter done, I'm ready to go for some more (maybe). As you have seen, I've made plenty of adjustments to the storyline of GTA III, as I want this to be a novelization, not just a complete run-through of the game script. Please R&R!


	12. Grip

**A/N: **Damn it, this category is DEAD! Come on, guys (and girls), lighten up! Here's the next chapter

Claude slept better than he had ever slept since he escaped justice. He rubbed his eyes, and dressed in a t-shirt and some running shorts which he had bought at PLAYERBMP yesterday. He headed outside for a jog, making sure to conceal a pistol just in case he ran into some Cartel, who probably would be trying to fry his head on a burner on Catalina's orders.

He ran up the street and towards Belleville Park, when suddenly, as he neared the pond, he stopped. Two Mafia men were sitting by a bench, holding army-issue M16 assault rifles. Claude would have muttered "Shit" if he could have, and he quickly turned around the other way and jogged off, shaking his head. Three gangs were after him now, and he had to be especially wary in Portland now that he had killed Salvatore.

Shaking his head, he headed back to his apartment, dressed back in a jacket and jeans, and got into his Yakuza Stinger. He decided to drive over to Asuka for an early morning job.

Asuka was sitting at the table with Maria eating breakfast as Claude waited at the entrance of the condo. Asuka noticed him and waved for him to come inside. Maria smiled at him as he headed over to the table, taking a seat.

"Salvatore's death comes as pleasurable news; you're an efficient killer. I like that in a man." Asuka said as Maria rolled her eyes and shoved another mouthful of cereal into her mouth.

Asuka was stopped by the presence of a Japanese man who entered in the room. He bowed to Claude, and Claude returned the compliment.

"Ah, this is my brother Kenji." Asuka said.

"Asuka's got a little job for you, but when you're done, drop by my casino and we can talk." Kenji said, and he headed outside.

"Just like Kenji, always trying to play with my toys." Asuka said, smiling evilly. Maria rolled her eyes again.

"My police source indicates that the Mafia are watching our interests around the city in a bid to track you down. We cannot continue our operation until they are dealt with. Take out these spying fools and end this vendetta once and for all." Asuka said.

_Shit_, Claude thought. The Mafia had either just been curious, or they had seen him shoot the crap out of Salvatore with his sniper rifle. He brightened up a bit when Asuka walked across the room, and outside to a patio, and pulled open a door, heading inside. She emerged a minute later, carrying a silencer and a military-issue M16 assault rifle with a couple of boxes of clips to spare. She tossed the lot to Claude and Maria stared at her in utmost disgust.

"That'll do you enough firepower for this job. Our Yakuza informants have told us that there are two Mafia men stationed at the fountain by Belleville Park, many are at an apartment block across the street from my brother's casino; you'll recognise it easily enough. And another person is in a van near the newspaper offices." Asuka said.

Claude headed out, the M16 in his hand. He drove the Yakuza Stinger back to his safehouse to retrieve his sniper rifle, and decided to go to Belleville Park first, where he had spotted the Mafia men earlier in the morning. He parked on the street, and moved over to some bushes, before pulling out his sniper rifle. Zooming in the scope, he aimed at the melon of one of them. A crack, and the man was sent crashing down, blood spurting from his head. Screams echoed around the park. The second man jumped up, but he was quickly brought down by another crack of Claude's sniper rifle. _Boom, headshot_, thought Claude as he headed back to his Yakuza Stinger, intent to continue the killing.

He drove his Yakuza Stinger over to Kenji's Casino, parking it at the back, grinning to himself as he spotted a yellow Sentinel parked. He pulled out his M16, ducked behind a wall just outside the casino, and peered around for some targets. It didn't take too long for him to do so. He looked across the street and found himself facing a high building. He sneaked a look over the cover of the wall, and spotted a Mafia man looking outside from a window. He quickly jogged back to his car, and grabbed his sniper rifle.

He readied himself again as he slipped the silencer on the sniper rifle. He picked off the Mafia men that were more isolated than others. And then, he began shooting with deadly accuracy.

_Click, Boom, Click, Boom, Click, and Boom_. The muffled sound of the sniper rifle disguised its lethal power, as three men all slumped down, with blood pouring out of their heads, out of their stomachs, out of their decapitated arms. Two were sent flying backwards; one slipped over the edge of the window he was spying from and dropped down the building. The others dived back into their room, away from exposure to a hidden sniper. Too late. Claude had pegged another one as he dived sideways. Two Yakuza men had emerged from Kenji's Casino, AK-47s levelled at Claude. Claude put his hands up, and followed the men as they headed back in.

"What are you doing with that gun?" demanded one of the Yakuza men, pointing his assault rifle at him.

Claude pointed at his throat, and made a gun shape, making the point that he was mute. One of the men grabbed a sheet of Kenji's Casino paper and a pen, and Claude scribbled: "There are Mafia men spying at the apartment across the street. Asuka sent me to kill them."

A look of confusion went over the first man's face. He turned to the other person, and they began to speak rapidly in Japanese. Then, one of them walked out of the room, while the other one continued to point his AK-47 at Claude.

Kenji appeared a few minutes later, followed by the man. He took a look at Claude, and said:

"Yes, that's the one my sister sent to kill those spies." Kenji said.

Slowly, the man guarding Claude withdrew his weapon.

"And I'd say he'll need some more firepower…a rocket launcher perhaps?" Kenji said.

Claude's eyes widened in shock as the two men headed out of the room, returning with a rocket launcher.

"You can use this until you've eliminated those Mafia spies-I'll ring Asuka." Kenji said.

Claude was still stunned as the men carried the rocket launcher with him out of the casino. He heaved up the rocket launcher and aimed. The men had decided that the sniper was gone, and had gone back to their regular routines. Claude fired at a couple in windows next to each other, and a rocket flew towards its target. Moments later, there was a huge crash as chunks of metal dropped out, the windows shattered and the two men were incinerated in the blast. Quickly, Claude waited for the rocket launcher to cool down, quickly memorising the position of the last man, who had quickly ducked back again. But it was a rocket launcher this time, and the rocket whistled, giving a shattering blast and Claude was positive he heard a man yell from the direction of the building.

Claude quickly turned back, heaving the missile launcher over his back. He headed back into the casino, sweating slightly as he pushed the heavy weapon down.

"It's done?" Kenji asked.

Claude nodded, panting still, before he straightened up. He was about to leave when he remembered something about Japanese courtesy, and he had a feeling that Kenji was the person who believe in goodwill. Slowly, he bowed to Kenji, and the co-leader of the Yakuza smiled.

"Hey, drop by, I think I'll have some bigger work for you than I suggested at Asuka's condo."

Claude bowed again and walked out of the casino, heading back to his Yakuza Stinger, and driving off. According to Asuka, there was a van near the Liberty Tree office. Claude drove over there to have a look. Sure enough, there was a van parked, with two men sitting at the front, half-asleep.

_And they're going to goddamn regret it_, thought Claude. He pulled out his M16, and took cover behind his Yakuza sports car. Suddenly, there was a flurry of bullets, and the third explosion of the day turned the van into a burnt inferno.

Claude gave a satisfied sigh, but little did he know he still had a long way to go to bury Catalina, or maybe fit her with a nice new pair of shiny cement shoes. He drove off, thinking of the best ways he could kill her.

_Shoot her in the face…decapitate her ass…place half the bombs at 8-Ball's on her body and detonate them…_


	13. Hellhole

**A/N: **Before I give out this chapter, I'd like to say one thing: Candyman and your gay friend Willis, you know who you are. Go fuck yourself eating tofu.

Here's the next chapter, a more pleasant note.

As Claude drove back to Asuka's place, his pager beeped. Sighing, he pulled it out, and expected a message from Asuka or 8-Ball or somebody like that.

It was neither of them. Apparently, it was from King Courtney, the leader of the Yardies, who seemed to be offering him work. Claude shook his head, and lazily deleted the message. He'd never forget the time when a group of Yardies had fired upon that ZR-350 that he had driven from the countryside of San Andreas, and had owned since he was about 18. He'd left that sports car in one of the Cartel garages a couple of years ago, when he got his Banshee. The license plate had been modified by Catalina to "

He drove over to Asuka's condo, only to find that nobody was there. However, Asuka had left a note.

"_A reporter has been nosing around. Maria and I have taken a little "holiday" together until you can get rid of this perverted voyeur. He's probably out in the bay as you read this! Steal a police boat, and sink his career!"_ the note said.

Claude shook his head and headed out to the back of the condo. He spied a Speeder parked out in the bay, and he headed back to his car to grab his sniper rifle. A minute later, the paparazzo was sleeping with the fishes, after Claude had caught him with a headshot and sent him tumbling into the sea. Claude lazily ejected the empty clip, his last shot being the final bullet of it, and walked out of the condo. He was sure becoming an efficient killer.

As Claude drove through Stanton Island, humming the Benny Hill show theme, he decided that he would go see Kenji to see what little task he had ready for him. Hopefully, it was none of that sort of honour sort of thing, where he just charged in with a katana of some sort.

He moved through the entrance of the casino, moving in the direction of the room where he had last seen Kenji, and the co-leader of the Yakuza was sitting down on a leather couch. He stood up and moved over to greet Claude, and they bowed to each other.

"My sister speaks highly of you, though I am yet to be convinced that a gaijin can offer anything but disappointment. Perhaps you could help deal with a situation that has me at a disadvantage." Kenji said, looking thoughtful.

"Of course, failure has its own disgrace. A Yakuza Kanbu is in custody awaiting transfer for trial. He is a valued member of the family. Break him out of custody and get him to the dojo in Bedford Point." Kenji handed Claude a photo of a middle-aged man.

Claude nodded slowly, turning around and heading out of the room.

By custody, Claude guessed that meant Staunton Island Police Department. He got into his Yakuza Stinger, driving his way over to the best place he reckoned he could find a police car-a doughnut shop.

As he drove, he turned the radio to Chatterbox, where more weirdos were phoning up Lazlow about one random issue after the other. Claude grinned at the antics of some of the callers: some were simply retarded; others had a point…not really. Sighing, Claude turned the radio to another channel, only to find himself next to a doughnut shop, and fair enough, a police car with the doors barely shut was parked outside. Claude got out of his Yakuza Stinger, and checked inside the shop; two officers were inside chewing on large iced doughnuts and gorging down milkshakes. Rolling his eyes, Claude parked the Stinger across the street among some other cars, before quickly jacking the cop car.

He sped the Police Car over to 8-Ball's shop for a quick pop, and apparently, 8-Ball had 10-second time bombs now, no longer the bombs that required the engine to be started up, which would be very helpful for the escape part of the job. Claude passed 8-Ball a few $100 bills.

As the motor gave a soft rumble, Claude settled into a mode of deep thought, thinking of the Cartel members he had been friends with. No, not many of them, they all didn't like the fact that he wasn't of Hispanic descent. The old Cartel leader, before that crap piece of shit Hernando and of course, shithead Catalina, was Cisco, who was just about the only person who treated him with much respect.

He'd been killed though, by some mobsters, though half the Cartel, including Catalina, had thought one of Cisco's old assassins, Mike had done the killing. It gave Claude a good laugh now that he had broken ties with the Cartel that about an army of Cartel had attempted to kill Mike, only to have the floor wiped with them.

Claude hadn't gone along; he was good friends with Mike and they both treated each other with respect. Mike had always done the dirtiest work for Cisco, even when Cisco didn't force him to, and Claude knew Mike was deadly loyal to Cisco, and he wouldn't have killed him. But those days where the Cartel didn't have backstabbing bitches as leaders was gone. Catalina probably told most of the Columbian Cartel that Hernando had been betrayed by Claude and that Hernando "told" her that she was the new leader.

By now, Claude had pulled up by the police station. The gate allowed him inside, and he parked his police car near where he thought where the holding cells would be. As he readied himself to rush out, he peered around the place. There were a couple of Enforcers parked nearby as well, but luckily, they didn't look close enough to be caught in the blast.

He parked the police car, set the bomb, and ran like crazy. It all happened in slow motion. As Claude sprinted forward in long, striding motions, the police car exploded from behind him, sending Claude flying forward from the blow of the blast. He smashed into the side of the Enforcer, and felt his nose give a sick squelching sound, as blood spurted out. Somehow, he picked himself up, pulling open the door to the SWAT van, and getting inside.

The blast had also blown a huge hole in a wall, revealing the Yakuza Kanbu, who was picking himself up, looking surprised. He quickly entered the car as Claude ushered him to, not sure if this was a kidnapping or a rescue attempt. Other cop cars were pouring into the compound now, and the alarm rang loudly. Claude pulled a quick 180 degree turn, and sped off towards the nearest Pay N' Spray, with cop cars in hot pursuit.

Claude angrily cut a corner on the street. The Enforcer was far too slow to outrun the police cars, so he needed a bit of shrewd thinking. As he tore through the Staunton Island streets, attracting even more police attention, he motioned a sign to the Yakuza Kanbu to bail out at his sign. It was just in time as well, as he turned to another street with a ramp that led into an enclosed compound. He hit the ramp and dived out a touch earlier, allowing the Kanbu to bail at the very last moment. The Enforcer had just enough speed for its last two wheels to catch the gate of the compound, and sent it flipping inside.

Seconds later, about five cop cars piled onto the ramp, and all five got served. One crashed into the structure that was built at the front of the enclosure after cleanly jumping over the gate, another was P.I.T manoeuvred at the last moment and did a nice little spin before crashing into the gate. The other three all performed nice stunts; a corkscrew, a double barrel roll, and even a triple backflip. Claude laid on the ground watching the antics, and was quite amused yet again; this happened quite too often. The Kanbu was grinning all over his face, but Claude quickly ushered him to a parked car, which luckily, was unlocked. It was a regular Kuruma, and Claude was happy to drive the Kanbu back to his Dojo in Bedford Point.

"I owe you much, my friend," the Kanbu called as he walked into his dojo.

Claude called a taxi outside the dojo to drive him back to the doughnut shop. Judging by the look on the taxi driver's face, he probably thought Claude was an undercover cop!

He retrieved his Yakuza Stinger and bought a jam doughnut and strawberry milkshake before driving to receive his payment, which was quite a nice chunk of cash; that guy must have been important, thought Claude as he surveyed his briefcase of $30000.

As Claude cruised along the streets of Staunton Island, he turned to one of the radio stations which seemed to be in the middle of a "Classic Oldies" mix. His mouth opened in horror as the song words came out:

"_All my ex's live in Texas…and Texas is a place I would be…"_

Claude would have yelped if he could have, and he quickly switched the radio to another channel, where the Foo Fighters were playing. Shaking his head at the fact that radio stations still played stuff like this, he continued to drive along the streets of the bustling business metropolis.

As the blazing sun bore on this shithole of a city, Claude rubbed his tired eyes. Despite the fact that the gods had descended on him last night and for the first goddamn time since he escaped the coppers, he'd gotten a good night's sleep, he was still tired as hell.

Wiping the sweat that was dripping down his brow, he took a sip of the milkshake that he had bought as the Stinger screeched softly to a stop at a red light. When it shot green again, Claude raced off towards Asuka's condo, hopeful for another job before he knocked off to do other things.

When he got there, Asuka had come back after her "little holiday" and was waiting for him. As Claude knocked on the door and was ushered in, Asuka exclaimed:

"It's my handsome handyman!"

As she did so, Claude noticed there was no Maria around anywhere.

"Maria is all tied up at the moment but I'll tell her you called." Asuka said as Maria's voice floated from upstairs.

"Who's that? Asuka? I know I've been a naughty girl but I really need to pee! Okay?" Maria shouted.

Asuka shook her head and whispered to Claude:

"She got in a spot of bother with the security when we were shopping…she tried to steal a diamond ring. I had to go in and pay for it, and it cost $2000."

She stood back again as she informed Claude of his task.

"It is time you met our man inside the LPD. Here is the payment for the last job he did for us." Asuka said, handing Claude a case of money.

"He is understandably cautious," she continued, and Claude thought _more like paranoid, considering he's a crooked cop_.

"Get to the payphone in Torrington as quick as you can and await his instructions."

Claude sighed, but Asuka withdrew another case of money and handed it to him, probably payment for rubbing out the fellow that was doing some paparazzi. Then, he headed back out to his Yakuza Stinger. He focused back on his days of racing in the countryside, thinking of getting to the Torrington phone booth as quickly as possible.

A few minutes later, after nearly upending two cars, almost cleaning up a group of teenagers and coming within a kitten's whisker of causing a pile-up, Claude pulled up to the phone he knew there was in Torrington. As usual, the phone was ringing, rather than being held until somebody paid money to call somebody else. Claude got out, and answered the phone.

"Hello there? Is that the "handyman" that was sent? Don't answer if you are," came a tough, seemingly battle-hardened voice.

Claude didn't answer, and a reply quickly came.

"So it is Asuka's kid? Right, right. The police are probably looking the hell for me, but I don't trust any of them, but if you're seriously the man, you're apparently one hell-good driver. Get to the phone on the west side of Belleville in…four minutes. I'll disconnect the call after that." Ray said, and then the phone clicked.

_Talk about paranoid_, thought Claude as he rushed back to his Yakuza Stinger, kicking the sports car when the door failed to open quickly enough. But no harm was done; he was soon skidding to a halt next to the payphone, jumping out and tucking the receiver between his ear and shoulder while he scratched his back.

"Get to the phone in Liberty Campus." Ray's voice rang.

Sighing, Claude slammed the phone down and rushed back into his gang car, ignoring the strange looks he was receiving.

Apparently, that still wasn't good enough for Ray, as when he got to the Liberty City Campus, he was told to go back to Belleville Park, this time around, the south side of it. Claude was livid. What sort of weirdos were there in Liberty City? Catalina might have been born a fucking bitch, but Salvatore was an asshole, the Yardies were stupid, and now, he had met some fucked-up, paranoid crooked cop.

Shaking in anger, Claude parked on the street and received the call at record time, finally getting the position of Ray, who apparently, was in the toilet block in the middle of Belleville Park. Slamming the door shut and then reopening it to grab the money, Claude took a few deep breaths to calm himself, as he walked slowly into the toilet block, entering and knocking against the only occupied cubicle, which obviously housed Ray.

The crooked cop unlocked the door, brushed himself, and looked at Claude. He quickly said:

"You must be Asuka's errand boy! Have you got the money? Is it all here?" Ray asked.

Claude passed over the money, glaring at former Officer Machowski.

"Well, I know what you're thinking, another bent cop…well, and it's a bent world!" Ray exclaimed, almost pompously as he examined the lines of green.

"Just because I lost some partners, those suckers from Internal Affairs have started sniffing around. Reckon they can smell me." Ray said, with a laugh.

"Well, this city is just one big open sewer. But I'm gonna need some non-union help. And if you're interested, you know where to find me." Ray winked.

Great. Another person who was offering him jobs from some craphole "inconspicuous" place. Claude remembered once taking a race from some random crack-smoking hippy. The "race" ended up being a wild goose chase through a farm after stealing a Cropduster or something like that.

Eventually, Claude was back at Asuka's place, waiting for Asuka's comment and payment.

"Well, you are one good handyman! Maybe not as good as one of my old ones, but still very good." Asuka smiled. Claude bet that other handyman was Mike.

"We'll tell Maria tomorrow or something, eh? I'll page you when I have another job for you though." Asuka said, pushing a case of money into Claude's hands.

More opportunities lay awaiting in the horizon.


	14. Hotshot Dynamite

The Columbian Cartel was rising up. Their level of drug activity had increased, and they had influence over nearly all of Shoreside Vale and were competing fiercely for a slice of the Staunton Island cake.

Three Cartel Cruisers pulled up to a stop in a narrow alleyway. The cool breeze of the Liberty City night gently ruffled the few trees that were left in the metropolis, and the dim streetlights cast shadows into the alley. As the three blue utes pulled up, from the other side of the dark abyss, four smaller cars entered, their paintwork coloured like the wrapper of a Cherry Ripe bar.

As the occupants of the seven cars all exited, they took their time to stare at each other. Finally, a woman with fiery eyes that almost shone red in the dim light, and hair tied back in a ponytail stepped forward. The Cartel men guarding her drew out their AK-47s, ready in case of an ambush. The leader of the Yardies, a Hispanic man with long black dreadlocks also stepped forward.

"We must make the deal." Catalina snarled, glaring at King Courtney as they stood in the alleyway.

"You are the one who requested the deal, lady. You're offering us." King Courtney replied coolly. His wound from the fight against Mike had not healed yet, and his upper arm was still bandaged.

"The Yakuza are still too powerful as a group. If we unite our organisations in an alliance, we might be able to take them down."

"And what we will get with our end of the deal?"

Catalina drew back, and one of the Cartel men carried a briefcase out, opening it and revealing several rows of money.

"Fifty-thousand dollars. Plus, we will give you some larger turf."

King Courtney nodded, but there was a clear sign of awe in his eyes.

"However, here is what I request you to do. I want your men, eses, whatever, to push the drug SPANK on the streets. I want your men to assist us in attacks. And I want you to…take care of one particular person." Catalina drawled, an evil smile coming to her lips as she withdrew a photo.

"We'll finalise our deal later on. At noon, tomorrow, we'll meet at the Carson General Hospital's car park. Okay?" hissed Catalina.

King Courtney nodded, and slowly took the case of cash, still staring in wonder at it as the Cartel members piled back into their cars. Catalina was smiling slowly in anticipation…

As the two parties departed, two Yakuza men who were observing the deal from a distance snuck off.

"We must tell Kenji!" one exclaimed quietly.

Claude's eyes blinked open and he quickly tried to adjust to the blazing sunlight. He'd returned back to his safehouse last night after a night of R & R at some nightclub. It wasn't as good as the Malibu Club, which he'd been to a couple of years ago on a vacation to Vice City when Catalina was acting weird and going out with another guy. Apparently, she killed that other guy two days after Claude left. She went on about that for about the next three weeks once Claude had gotten back, after spending time at the Malibu and doing a little work for Tommy Vercetti.

After a few more seconds, Claude picked himself up and dressed up in his black jacket and green pants. _Another day of hell_, he thought to himself. Probably more dirty work for Kenji and maybe Ray, if he even decided to see him. Asuka would probably be shopping…that seemed pretty obvious, despite Maria's mishap yesterday.

Surprise, surprise. When he got there, there was no sign of the Yakuza or her old friend. Instead, Claude discovered a note placed on the breakfast table.

"_Maria and I have gone shopping. Our source in the police has informed us that one of our drivers is a strangely animated undercover cop! He's more or less useless out of his car, so we've tagged it with a tracer. Make him bleed!"_ the note read.

Claude turned his eyes to a smallish package next to the note, and tore it open.

Out fell a tracking device-and another note.

"_The red button turns on the tracking device. The beep from the tracer is muted, so the cop shouldn't be able to hear it. Oh, and I've got Maria under control after her little mishap last time-Asuka"_ Asuka's note read.

Claude scoffed. Tracers? The next thing he'd have were GPS street navigators. This was complete and utter bullshit.

To his surprise though, when he tapped the red button as he entered his car, a purple blip appeared, and surprised, he drove towards it. Sure enough, a car was parked up there, but just before Claude settled down to wait, his eyes spotted a Rumpo van driving and stopping by a traffic light. His eyes lit up, as he got out and ran towards it, shoving a handful of bills into the driver's hands. The driver was surprised, but quickly got out in order to prevent having his head filled with lead.

Claude cruised the van back to the parking spot, waiting for the undercover cop to arrive in his car. He began to pull his AK-47 out, but quickly, he let the powerful assault rifle go, letting the weight balance comfortably in his hands. Now he would wait. Wait for his chance to deliver the Valkyrie call.

Reg Tanner made his way out of the building, satisfied with his work in burrowing in so deep within the Yakuza. He wondered what the hell his brother was doing. The last time he'd heard of him was that he'd been chased by about a million police cars through San Fierro, which apparently was a ploy. Shaking his head, he moved towards his car, pulling out his car keys. The doors clicked open smoothly, and Tanner moved inside, not bothering to turn for any dangers. As he pressed the button requesting his FBI escort, Claude took his chance.

One bullet sang through the air and connected with the gas tank of the car, and landed with a thud, singing its deadly song. The car exploded in a violent shudder of orange and red, leaving a burnt corpse behind. Unfortunately for Claude, a police car happened to be driving along at the scene at the time. Immediately, the sirens started with a howl, and Claude cursed his luck.

The engine was jolted into action as the assassin put a foot on the pedal. The Rumpo gave a noise of complaint, as the wheels screeched before taking off, with a police car hot behind its heels.

_Shit, shit, fuck, fuck, shit, shit_. A stream of curse words went through Claude's mind as the Rumpo made its way. The FBI had joined the procession that was seemingly intent on beating the crap out of him.

Three or four FBI cars full of AK-47 wielding agents poured like a stream of black eels across Claude's path, each of the men inside firing rifles that rained lead upon the fledging van, quickly causing the Rumpo to begin spewing angry grey smoke. Claude continued to lead it, but he was running out of options. _Another ramp jump?_ No, there were too many of them. As his eyes fluttered about, looking for a new vehicle, he caught his eyes upon a PCJ-600 motorcycle that had been left by an alleyway. Not much protection, but at least more speed.

Claude steadied his van, and dived out of it just before it crashed into a wall, right next to the alleyway. The FBI cars in hot pursuit swerved out of the way of the flaming van, and Claude seized his opportunity to steal the bike which had its engine still on, with the owner probably going to do something. He immediately took his chance to steal the bike and race off, with the FBI Cars quickly recovering and continuing to give chase.

Claude led the sleek black cars around most of Staunton Island, and by the time he nearly cut a pedestrian in half, the paintjob on the Kurumas didn't look so shiny anymore. But Claude was out of pump as well. His PCJ-600 was veering closely to empty fuel and soon he would have to give up. But as he narrowly avoided an FBI skewing across his path in an attempt to T-bone him off his bike, he spotted a Packer ramp truck up ahead parked near a couple of SWAT Enforcers forming a roadblock.

_Ah, what the hell. This is where the audience says "He's doing that same unoriginal shit again"_, Claude thought as he let the bike smooth out forwards. The FBI cars stopped and the agents watched with a smile as they saw that the killer finally seemed to be cornered. The smiles quickly vanished though as they realised what Claude was going to do. Instead, their mouths drew wide open.

Claude took a deep breath, and drove across the lower part of the ramp, intending to get just enough height to hit the Enforcer and bump high in the air, over a low building, and onto the other side. He got it just right. The PCJ began to ascend height, and Claude leaned back, pushing the rear wheel to connect with the top of the Enforcer, propelling it into the air. The SWAT members who were conferring with the driver of the Packer truck stared and watched as the motorbike took off in the air.

Everything went in slow-motion as the motorbike slowly moved forward in the air. The light breeze blew in Claude's face, and adrenaline pumped through every cell of his body. _Well, there goes my chance of being a Hollywood stunt driver_, Claude thought as he braced himself for landing. The FBI would probably tell every movie director in Hollywood about him.

The sports bike landed with a thud, and Claude's stomach calmed down as he looked, surprised at where he had landed; the street on which his safehouse was. He quickly raced over, parking his newly-acquired bike in the garage, and pressing the elevator. As it hit the floor where he lived on, he opened the door of his flat, which was always unlocked mainly due to convenience, and headed inside, quickly locking it again. He really needed to lie low for a while now. A year, maybe even two would do good justice to his health. But of course, that was out of hand.

The best thing he could manage was a cold shower, and dressing in some more casual clothes, a _Nirvana_ tour shirt which he had discovered completely new in his old hideout, and an Adidas basic 3-Strips dazzle snap that he had acquired from the PLAYERBMP shop. Then, he settled down to watch some TV, and tuned in to the morning news.

Luckily, the news had just started, being 10:30. The theme music came on, and the voiceover saying: "LCN-bringing you news 24/7." The frame scrolled over to Sandy McEntire, the anchorwoman.

"Good morning and this is Liberty City morning news. Breaking news here as police begin the investigation of the murder of an undercover cop. Reg Tanner was murdered early this morning when his car exploded as he entered it. Police suspect a bomb, although sources have informed that Tanner's doors were locked. The most likely suspicion was a bullet piercing the gas tank."

"Currently, we have no further information. Police and FBI officials reported seeing a middle-aged man in a black leather jacket and green pants escaping the scene in a van, and then in a motorbike. There have been rumours of how that man used a Packer ramp truck to bump a SWAT Enforcer used as a roadblock, over a building and onto the other side. The LCPD have denied these rumours, and FBI officials have made sure nobody with a black leather jacket and green pants are allowed to apply for a role as a Hollywood stunt driver."

Claude chuckled silently in his mind as he listened.

"And for today's other top story: Carl Johnson of Los Santos in the state of San Andreas has broken the record for the furthest distance jumped with a bunny hop. He achieved this feat today when he bunny-hopped from the top of Mount Chilliad in San Andreas, and landed on a tree. Here's what he had to say after he'd gotten down."

A camera flicked to CJ, who was dressed in a green hoody and a tracksuit.

"Yeah, I'm pleased on breaking the record; I wasn't exactly trying to, but yeah, it turned out all right for me, it did. One more thing, if you're there, I'd like to say, you're a fucking bitch, Catal-"

Before CJ could finish, the camera quickly flicked to a view of Mount Chilliad from its peak.

"Mr Johnson attempted the jump with his BMX from the peak here, which is some distance off the ground. It has also been the site of some plan…oh shit, here comes a plane!" shouted the reporter as a Rustler lost control and crashed on the top, narrowly missing the news team.

"Currently, we have no more information. And to other news, the San Fierro Packers beat the crap out of Liberty City Cocks 77-0, with Jamie Ricketson scoring five touchdowns."

Claude shook his head, smirking as he changed channels. After flicking around for a while, he turned the TV off, and headed back outside. Sure, the police were crawling all over the place, but they were stupid enough not to keep the same police who had seen him, and the new cops didn't notice him at all.

He hailed a taxi to drive him over to the murder scene, which was also roped off, but his Yakuza Stinger was still there, which surprised him since the police department obviously knew Tanner must have been an undercover cop for the Yakuza. He quickly got in and drove off. As he sped away, he could see a police car coming around the corner from behind him.

_You lucky duck_, Claude thought to himself. Well, that was all done now, and Asuka would probably still be shopping with Maria, with Maria's shopping ability probably extremely high. And there still was an hour to go till lunchtime, so he decided to see if he could get anything from Kenji.

Kenji's Casino was a place of glitz and glamour, where rich and not necessarily Japanese men would take their wives and girlfriends to gamble, drink and enjoy themselves. There were the poker chips, the big wheel of fortune, women in mini-skirts and such, but Claude had no mind on this. He was here for business, and he was very quickly becoming the man known by the Yakuza to do just about any job for them for a good paycheck.

He nodded at the AK-47 wielding Yakuza guards, who let him in and he entered the room to confront Kenji. Again, he motioned to bow and Claude returned the compliment.

"It is impossible to overestimate the importance of etiquette in this line of work. To my eternal shame, a man once did me a favour and I've never had an opportunity to repay his kindness." Kenji said, looking rather rueful.

_Oh, not this honour shit again_, Claude thought.

"The man's weakness is motor cars and he has requested that we acquire him certain models for his collection. Needless to say, we must give him the cars as a gift, to repay the debt that I owe him. You must obtain the cars on this list-" Kenji said, handing a sheet of paper to Claude who read '2001 INFERNUS, 1998 CHEETAH, 2000 STINGER'. There were also some numbers written next to the car models.

"-and deliver them to a garage behind the car park in Newport. My honour-" Claude coughed silently.

"-demands it." Kenji finished.

Claude was shaking his head. The Yakuza were powerful, they gave good weapons, and they paid handsomely, but this honour stuff was really making bullshit out of him. He quickly made his way out of the casino, walking out onto the street to his Yakuza Stinger. He decided to have a check of where the place in Newport was. Sure enough, he found the garage nestling at the back of a little car-park, with a Pay N' Spray repair service right next to it.

I guess Kenji picked this spot so he could get the cars repaired just in case I smashed them up, Claude thought. He spotted an unlocked Blista parked nearby, so he left his Yakuza Stinger and decided to go after the cars with the Blista.

He took a cruise around Staunton Island for a few minutes, when he spotted a Cheetah parked at Carson General Hospital. His eyes lit up, and he was about to think that the driver must have been an idiot, when as he twisted the key, a little gadget on the seat beeped, and a voice said "Enter the code on the sheet of paper."

_Neat,_ Claude thought as he entered the seven-number code, and the gadget beeped, the engine started and Claude clambered in. He was glad that they hadn't changed the look of the Cheetah from the 1986 model, and the only thing changed was that now it was much more durable, and the colours were sleeker and shinier. He took a while to admire the leather seats, the power windows, and the smooth acceleration as he raced through the metropolitan area, back to the garage. The sports car handled beautifully, and Claude didn't need to dent it, and he lazily parked it in the garage.

Now for the Stinger. Claude took the Yakuza Stinger around the island, but to no avail. He couldn't spot the Yakuza's weaker sport's car counterpart. Just as he was about to give in to frustration, he drove past the Liberty Tree Office car-park, and somehow, he spotted a Stinger nestled up on one of the higher levels. He quickly swerved the Yakuza Stinger around, turning into the car-park.

Again, after entering the code, he got inside the Stinger. The Stinger had also had its fair share of changes over the years. Claude hadn't seen a single one in San Andreas, but back in Vice City, there were plenty of the convertibles cruising about on the streets. However, the latest models that had popped up from the Stinger range now had a roof. They hadn't changed much though. The acceleration and speed were still excellent, and they handled pretty well, although Claude still preferred the Comets, which were speedy and nimble.

"_Why am I judging cars?"_ Claude asked himself.

He glided the Stinger back to the garage in Newport, and then he realised that he needed a new car.

He sighed, and read the sheet of paper again. He then noticed three random jumbled-up words which read "BLRIEYT RAMMOEIL LSMUOECI".

_What the fuck?_ Claude crinkled his nose and slowly scrambled it out into "Liberty City Coliseum". So now, he was playing kiddie games. Great fucking way to do this job. He turned back onto the street, and hailed a taxi, tossing a couple of bills at him to get him to the stadium. Sure enough, he found an unlocked Infernus there, and he couldn't help judging the car…again.

The Infernus had undergone plenty of different model changes over the years. One of his mates back in the San Andreas countryside had owned one of the '86 Infernus sports cars, and it was a real beauty. The model at that time looked rather like, well, a piece of metal shit. It had a rather oversized bumper and a spoiler that just didn't fit in place, and it looked square-shaped. It was pretty damn quick though, which allowed plenty of good street racing or racing through the countryside. The models that they developed afterwards looked much better, and Claude liked the latest 2001 model. They'd gone back to the large spoiler and the car looked sleek, agile, and properly-shaped. He entered the car and punched in the code, before turning the engine on. Like all the good sports cars at the moment, the Infernus handled nicely and was speedy.

He dropped off the car at the garage, before calling a Taxi to retrieve his Yakuza Stinger. Another job done, another piece of bullshit cleared up.


	15. New Start: Spare Parts

**A/N: **I've decided to take a bit of time out of the actual storyline of the game, and have begun a side-story based on Claude's earlier days. So here's the first part, of "Spare Parts". I'll inter-cut a chapter of this between chapters in the main story.

**May 14, Angel Pine, small town in the countryside of San Andreas, 1991.**

_Dust. Sweat. The roar of engines._

It was in these moments, in which this way of life was worth living.

_Pink slips. Rolls of cash. Shiny cars. Reputation._

It was in these rewards, in which this way of life was worth living.

_Hmph_, Claude Speed thought as his feet made their way towards the tiny bar that was a "front" for the illegal races held through the countryside. Big dose of reality! He threw a look at his rusted old Bravura parked outside the shed, before he headed inside.

The bar was a wreck, filled with smoke emitted from the cigarettes that most of the drinkers held in two fingers, while they were downing beer. Claude frowned at the two men throwing punches at each other while all the others cheered them on with chants of "Beat his ass! Beat his ass!" or simply "Fight! Fight! Fight!"

"What a shit place." Claude muttered quietly to himself as he made his way to the bartender.

After ordering some beer, he opened his mouth, but the bartender beat him to it.

"What youse want?" demanded the bartender as he poured a glass of beer from a dirty-looking tap, and offered it to Claude.

"I'm looking for Black Greg." Claude replied calmly, taking the beer and gulping down a mouthful, before handing over a note.

"What y'all looking for from me?" came a voice from behind him as a middle-aged man with a cowboy hat appeared and plonked down beside Claude.

Claude looked at the man who had sat himself next to him. It was Black Greg all right.

"I'm looking to sign up for your races," he said, taking another swallow.

Greg's eyes narrowed and he frowned.

"What do you think you are? This ain't any pussy Sunshine Autos racing; this is San Andreas countryside illegal street racing! We don't want kittens popping up and saying they can't race, and then pull out after the first turn saying they can't handle it!" Greg exclaimed, banging his fist on the table, getting in Claude's face.

"And did I say that I come from Vice City? I guess you shouldn't jump to conclusions." Claude replied, somewhat calmly.

Greg sat back and laughed.

"Nah, I'm messing with you, kid. You look like some sort of racer anyway. All right, you're on the list, get back here tomorrow morning, nine o'clock sharp, I don't like fools who come late and expect to race, y'know. And about your car and job…" Greg said, looking quite befuddled at the sight of Claude's broken-down Bravura.

"Yeah, I'm used to it. I'm just strapped for cash." Claude winked.

"Yeah, that's what I thought. Listen, depending on what I think of you after tomorrow's race, I might provide you with a little roll of cash, righto?" Greg replied, smiling and revealing a set of yellow teeth, before he moved off.

Claude settled down again to drain the rest of his beer.

**May 15, Angel Pine, San Andreas, 1990.**

The Bravura clunked to a halt outside the bar and Claude noticed already that there were a couple of men sitting by their cars, smoking and talking to each other.

_Damn_, Claude thought.

Now he knew what Greg meant by a better car and paintjob. The two men were leaning on Sultans, a classy street racing car which had the ability to be modded up at Arch Angels in San Fierro. Compare that to Claude's old '86 Bravura, which hadn't had anything done to it for about five years.

Gradually, more and more drivers turned up, and the list of classy cars piled a bit more. A ZR-350, a couple of Elegys, a Uranus, and to top it off, a Cheetah. By nine o'clock, Claude had counted nine cars in total, including himself.

_I guess there's no room for speed. There's only room for me to outrace them_, he thought.

Finally, Black Greg had arrived at the starting line, wearing a dirty leather jacket and blue jeans.

"All right, all racers ready? I want a _clean, fair _race…" Greg shouted and all the racers roared in laughter. Greg gave a grin as well as he continued.

"…the winner picks up $2000, enough cash for you to get your ass drunk for a week. Or maybe some car upgrades…" Greg commented, glancing ruefully at Claude's Bravura.

"You'll follow the path out from Angel Pine, through some forest and then back onto the road, rounding back to the Pine, righto? Oh, we've got some fellows to direct you on your way, all right?"

"So…on my mark, Three, Two, One, Mark!" Greg yelled and a roar of engine smoke set up as the racers sped off towards the first "checkpoint" located just as the turn into the countryside dirt path, where a man was standing in place, waiting.

Claude had somehow managed to shoot off the blocks, and led the racers as they hit the first checkpoint. Of course though, he'd been beset by about three cars quickly after he'd hit the checkpoint and quickly slipped back to 5th place. As another car attempted to go inside Claude's turn to the right towards the bridge which held the next checkpoint, he swung the Bravura back a touch, and slid across the back of the racer.

The effect was dramatic. The car's tyres screeched around, and the car swerved sideways, as Claude sped forward away from its clutches. He could hear the massive crunches of metal as the remaining cars behind him piled up against that car.

_Yeah, that's my concept of fair racing_, Claude thought as he glided around a turn, timing his speed control perfectly to zoom around the bend.

There were a couple cars in front of him battling it out with each other, rather than really focusing on the race and the turns. Claude took advantage of this as the two of them scraped against each other, with one banging the other into a tree and the other responding with a well-executed P.I.T manoeuvre. As the two disentangled themselves, Claude whipped past them and headed out towards the two leaders, the Cheetah and the ZR-350.

As the path headed to another bridge and quickly back onto solid, asphalt road, along a stretch of road, and a 90 degree turn followed by some more roads, he hit a train of thought. Claude knew that he couldn't match the two leaders for pace, so he needed some wily driving skills, or a sheer chunk of luck.

As it turned out, he got both. As Claude chased the two sports cars along the road, followed them as they cruised seemingly effortlessly along a curved road and back across the water, things changed very suddenly and very quickly. Just before they hit the end of the circular turn which led just past the bridge, the Cheetah, which was sitting outside the ZR-350 in first position, lost control and slid back towards the middle of the road-where a tanker was heading from the other side. The Cheetah connected right with the midriff of the tanker, disconnecting the large tanker of gas. The ZR-350 had too much momentum to stop as well, smashing into the side of the Cheetah as it tried to head through the middle of the gap opened up by the split tanker.

By now, Claude had caught up to them in the time of the smash, and he had been rather absent-minded. It was barely metres from the smash when he finally took notice of the situation.

It was from street racing driver's instinct that Claude surpassed the accident. He hit the handbrake, and spun his car around a full 180 degrees. Since the Cheetah had split the Tanker in half, Claude's momentum had taken him straight between the actual carrier, tanker and Cheetah…backwards. He quickly swung back round the right way another 180 degrees, and suddenly, he was in the clear, and his last two obstacles were eating dust, or more like eating gas.

After having an undisturbed cruise to the finish line, he quickly made his way to Black Greg, who was looking rather pleased.

"Wow, kid, seems like you really got it in you." Greg said, grinning.

"Thanks, but I got lucky." Claude replied, thinking of his freak accident.

"I know you did, all the guys were talking about what happened just then. Some accident with an oil tanker, right?"

Claude nodded slowly, and watched as the other cars slowly began to come in. Most of them were holding dents that weren't there before the race.

"Well, son, I guess you've got talent in ya. Here's your cash, too. Buy a beer-on me." Greg said, handing Claude a handful of bills.

As Claude headed back to inspect his even more battered Bravura, he knew this would only be the start.

**End note: **How'd you all like that? This side-story will likely be reasonably short, eight or nine chapters the most, as of course, I'm still working on the main story. Cheerios, all.


	16. Crazy Bitch

**A/N:** No, I'm not dead. Just hiding. School started again a couple of weeks ago, and it's mainly been just a load of sorting out getting books and stuff. Anyway, enough about my life, let's get on with this chapter. Oh, a warning to any of you who frown upon swearing, because this chapter contains a load of pointless swearing, mainly from the likes of Catalina.

Claude was about to head back to his safe house in his Yakuza Stinger when he got a page from Kenji wanting him to be at the casino within ten minutes for a "big task which will yield much honour and cash".

Surprisingly, Claude didn't end up getting pissed at Kenji's honour comment, as when he meant "big cash", he definitely meant "big cash". He quickly drove over to the casino, where he found Kenji pacing about. After the usual bow, Kenji informed Claude of his task, and he sounded a bit pissed.

"When trouble looms, the fool turns his back, while the wise man faces it down…" Kenji said as Claude thought quietly to himself, _Why the fuck did I choose to come?_

"The Columbian Cartel-"Claude quickly began to listen carefully again.

"-have ignored repeated requests to leave our interests in Liberty alone. Now they are negotiating terms with the Jamaicans in order to humiliate us further. They are finalizing a deal across town. Take one of my men…" Kenji informed, pointing to one of the Yakuza men holding an M16 assault rifle.

"…steal a Yardie car, and go pay our respects to the Columbians. Our honour demands you leave no one alive." Claude remained still as Kenji pronounced "honour", mainly because he finally had a chance to have a good shot at Catalina and the Columbian Cartel.

Kenji passed Claude a case of money, and ushered him out along with the Yakuza man who he ordered to go along with Mr. Speed.

"The Yardies own turf in Newport, right? We might find a Yardie Lobo there," the Yakuza said as he stuffed a clip into his M16.

Claude nodded as the two of them entered his Yakuza Stinger. They drove over to Newport, picking off a couple of Yardies who fired upon the car on the way, and quickly found a Yardie Lobo driving about. Claude pulled up next to the Lobo and within two seconds, both the driver and the two passengers had been popped by the Yakuza riding shotgun. Claude slipped his Uzi and pistol into his pockets, and shoved the AK-47 under his jacket.

_Dang, he's good_, Claude thought as the two entered the Yardie Lobo.

"Do you have any weapons, Claude-san?" asked the Yakuza as Claude hit the accelerator before any more Yardies could come.

That question slightly shocked Claude, but he nodded and he took out his Uzi and assault rifle.

He drove the Yardie Lobo over to the Carson General Hospital, which was the supposed place of meeting. He made a reconnaissance run to start with, and noticed several Columbians holding AK-47s, and leaning against a couple of Cruisers. One of them was holding a briefcase, and the actual Yardies hadn't arrived yet. Claude made a few motions indicating that they'd go around the back and ambush them, which thankfully, the Yakuza man understood.

He drove the Yardie Lobo from around the back, and as the Yardie gangcar screeched across, bullets hissed in the air from the M16 and Claude's Uzi, embedding into the frames of the Cruisers. Three or four hit one of the Cartel men in the jugular vein, blowing his brains out, and Claude quickly pulled back the other way for a second run. By now, the Cartel men had dived for cover, and began shooting at the Lobo. Unfortunately for them, and luckily for the two members of the drive-by, they didn't aim their guns in a way so they didn't lead the car, and with the second wave of fire from Claude, a focused wave of bullets fried a Cartel cruiser and caused a chain explosion that took out the rest of the hostiles.

"Well, I guess that wasn't too bad," the Yakuza man said as Claude grabbed the brief case. He kicked it open and several cash notes flew out. Quickly, he turn it right-way up again, and inspected the briefcase more closely. Most of the briefcase was filled with cash, but there were also a few packets labelled "Característica del cártel colombino"-"Property of the Columbian Cartel". To go with that, there was a photo of Claude, written this time in English-"KILL THAT MAN".

_Holy shit_, Claude thought. That was when he realised he was dealing with a real crime organisation. Sure, Catalina was a shitface and he hated to admit it, but she had really manoeuvred the Columbian Cartel to become a force in Liberty City, and it was up to him to decimate their influence over Staunton Island and Shoreside Vale.

Kenji was looking very pleased when Claude pulled up by the casino, and he handed Claude his payment, $40000 in cold, hard cash. Claude bowed once more, before driving back to his Yakuza Stinger, now really rolling in cash.

"WHERE THE FUCK IS THOSE IDIOTA?" screamed Catalina, jumping up from her leather couch and nearly spilling her tequila sunrise.

"I don't know, lady, they should be here by now." Miguel replied, changing the television channel and sipping his martini.

"Well, get your fucking slack ass off the couch and drive there, you piece of shit!" Catalina yelled, taking out a pistol.

"Geez, calm down, you crazy bitch!" Miguel protested.

"I'll crazy bitch you, you lazy couch-potato of a sweat-drop. Now move!" Catalina snarled, dragging Miguel off the couch and kicking him in the ass.

Catalina was residing in Staunton Island when her men had blown the Callahan Bridge to bits, and the subway wasn't working, so she was basically stuck here, unable to reach her mansion in Shoreside Vale. Of course, this didn't affect Catalina much, as she was already well-known enough for her hissy fits through the Cartel, especially since she took leadership from Hernando.

"Fucking slack shitface," muttered Miguel as he twisted the key and turned on the ignition.

"I heard that, you FUCKING GAY PIECE OF SHIT!" screamed Catalina and she hit Miguel with a powerful uppercut to the jaw, breaking his nose.

Miguel had no other choice but to pull their Stinger out of the garage, and drive off with his nose still bleeding freely.

Catalina's mood worsened when the two of them finally arrived over at the scene of the "deal".

"What the fuck's going on here?" she hissed, examining the several corpses belonging to Cartel members lying around.

"Well, they all seem to be dead…"

"I know that, you crapface! So what are they doing dead?"

"Well, obviously, they've been killed by somebody…" Miguel was about to theorise when three Yardie Lobos pulled up by the murder site.

Immediately, Miguel and Catalina dived behind cover and pulled out pistols.

"Hey, lady, what's going on?" asked King Courtney as he exited the leading Yardie Lobo.

"You're what's fucking going on…" growled Catalina, pointing both pistols at the Yardie leader's head.

"What the fuck did we do?" asked Courtney, unmoved despite the fact that his life lay in Catalina's fingertips.

"You caused this." Catalina said, calmly, as Miguel stared at her with his mouth wide-open.

"What the fuck, why is your mouth open like a goldfish? Do you expect a fucking golf ball to enter it?" Catalina screeched in fury.

That was more like it.

She slowly moved the pistols away from King Courtney's head.

"It iz obviously someone who iz trying to break our connectionz." Courtney explained slowly.

Catalina's eyes narrowed.

"And who would those people be?" she asked.

"Yakuza, Mafia, Hoods, Triads, who knows." King Courtney muttered.

Catalina's eyes widened.

"Ah ha! That bag of shit Claude!" she exclaimed triumphantly.

"Say what?" Miguel asked.

"You fucking idiota, where the fuck have you been for the last two months? You know that fucktard I nearly killed at that robbery that YOU chickened out to go on?"

King Courtney had been watching Catalina's antics looking quite amused, but he quickly interrupted just when Catalina looked like she was going to whack Miguel in the face with her pistols.

"Err, lady, what were you saying about this fellow?" he asked.

"Obviously, the Yakuza probably sent him over to try and bust up our deal…y'know, amigo…" Miguel butted in, and Catalina shot him a glare.

"So what we do about him? And about this alliance?"

"We should keep selling SPANK. Keep your men on the streets selling the stuff, bitches and their johns love that shit. I think we should plant a trap for Claude, that little fucking asshole loves getting any job for some cash…"

"So?"

"Wait till I finish, you piece of crap, we page his number, right? So we toss a few men to ambush him as he picks up our "stash", and we're done with it, right?" Catalina smiled evilly.

"So what's your plan?" asked Courtney.

"Hear me out, amigo…" Catalina explained as Miguel watched, completely stunned by Catalina not using the word "fuck" for three sentences.

It was either how important this seemed to be for Catalina, or maybe she'd decided to change.

"You fucking deaf piece of fucking crap! Are you even fucking listening?" Catalina screamed next to Miguel's ear.

The reality check pulsed into Miguel's ear and nearly properly deafened him. Quickly, the Cartel co-leader turned his ears to listen to the rest of Catalina's explanation. As he did, words flashed through his mind, and they only said one thing:

"YOU GOT OWNED!"

**End note: **So, another one done. This story should really get bumped to M, mainly thanks to this chapter alone...


	17. Crash And Burn

**A/N: **Well, back again after a seemingly long hiatus. I've decided to make some modifications to the mission "Kingdom Come", to just go along a bit more with what I've written…thing such as Manana cracks.

The sound of a rocket exploding next to the warrior had him back on alert as his health dropped under 20, but before anybody could take advantage of that, he rounded a corner, and tucked in some shadows, lay a MegaHealth pickup and a railgun. Accepting both with glee, he spun around, and fired a perfectly-placed shot at the cyborg rounding the corner. The uranium slug cut the cyborg in half, splattering the floor with gore. On-screen, the message appeared "You have taken the lead." Moving forward, he grabbed the vaporised enemy's plasma gun, and looked for someone else to melt.

Claude had been playing Quake III Arena at a games/internet café for three hours now, and it did something in relaxing him as well as keeping his senses alert as well. _One more game_, he thought as he stared around, looking for any enemies lurking about, and he entered a large room with a couple of bounce pads, and containing three competitors battling fiercely. As he was about to open fire, he spotted a Quad-Damage pickup reappearing on an elevation which would require the bounce pad to reach. Unfortunately, one of the combatants also saw the Quad-Damage, a heaven in the dirty world of Deathmatch. They both went for the pad, and hit it at the same time, bouncing into the air. The combatant hit Claude with machine-gun fire, but Claude, on instinct, had his gauntlet out and completed a splatter right in mid-air. As the corpse flopped down and landed in front of the two others, ducking, strafing, firing, text appeared on screen saying: "fuk u noob!"

Claude grinned as he grabbed the pick-up, and wiped out the remaining health from the two fighters, ending the Deathmatch. Satisfied, Claude wiped a drop of sweat from his brow and closed the game, tossing a few extra notes to the guy at the counter as he walked out.

As he strolled confidently back to his car, he realised how hungry he was. He headed over to Cluckin' Bell to order some chicken wings and also a latte from the (non-internet) café sitting next to that, and settled into his car to eat his "snack". He took a bite of the chicken wing, and spat it out in disgust. The quality of chicken had gone down slowly over the years, and Claude wasn't even sure the chicken wings were even made out of the bird.

As he chewed off some of the "meat", swallowing it and shivering, his beeper rand, and he nearly spilt his latte in the process of taking it out. Expecting Kenji, he opened the message, but there was nothing from the Yakuza co-leader. Instead, the message read "pick up stsh from carpk in bedford pointbig $$$ (50k+)" Frowning at the use of literacy in the message, Claude was about to delete it, but decided that he would check it out anyway. He exited his car, tossed the box of "Chicken Wings" into a nearby bin, drained the rest of his coffee, and drove off.

"Wooaaahhhh….dis shit roksssss!" yelled one of the Yardies drowsily.

"Yeh'…ma'n, we's gonn' hav' onna hell's tim' inna' kin'dom 'comma!"

"Wha's we's s'posa ta 'doooooooo 'neways?" asked one of them, his words rolling over each other as he got higher by the second.

"We's wer's, y'know…strap th'things dat gooooes boooooo'ma and'a wai' fer summa' blac'hair'ddd' duuuuuuuuude ti' cuma' pikka' up disss 'c-car." Yardie One said, pointing at the parked Manana about fifty metres from their van.

"Sooo' we'da 'chaaarj atta' dem, and'a bloow' us'zelves' up'a, rye'?"

"Ya'…we is daaaa fou'r de' Yard'esssss!" one shouted and they all cheered.

"Who'sse wanna' SPANK?" asked one of them, taking out a large handful of drugs.

"Me's! Meh!" the bunch of Yardies shouted, and they crowded about, taking the drugs and shoving them in their mouths.

"Hee'ss, sinn'ss w're herr', I gota' say' summin'" yelled one of them as he relaxed on the back seat.

"Wha'?" yelled about ten voices.

"I fink dat Quin' Lizze' isssss haaawwwt!"

"'So dooo ayyyyy!" yelled all the others.

"Hiiiiayyy…it'iz bou' tim'….let' pu' dose masses on!"

Claude felt suspicious about this whole job, so as he parked just outside the carpark, he took his AK-47 and shoved a new clip into. The weapon clicked, and Claude smiled gratefully. As he was about to exit, he added a couple of extra clips just in case he ran out of ammo. He knew that after all this business was done, he'd probably have to pop over to Ammu-Nation for some ammunition to replenish his sniper rifle, Uzi and AK-47. He wondered if maybe he could pick up an army-issue M16 assault rifle there either.

He walked out into the open, and noticed there was only a parked Manana. _Geez, they must be giving these away for scrap metal_, Claude thought, remembering his car chase with the Forelli family members. He settled into the front seat, and noticed a note on the front seat. He laid the AK-47 next to him, and began to read. As he did so, his eyes widened. Not the fact that it was really sinister, but the fact that Catalina had actually spelt nearly every word right:

_I hear you've been a busy boy. Well, I've been a busy girl. Time you witnessed the power of SPANK!_

_Besos y fuderes, Catalina xxxx_

_P.S. Die Peeg Dog, DIE!_

_Well, actually, she did sort of get the Spanish part wrong and screwed up the spelling of 'Pee'…_ thought Claude as he grabbed his AK-47 and leapt on top of the car, ready for the coming ambush. As per usual, three men approached him from three parked Rumpos that had just entered the car-park. They were wobbling at the knees and wearing masks. Strapped to their waists were sticks of dynamite, but none of them got to use them as Claude cut them down by adding a nice assortment of holes through each of their heads.

Before he could stop for a temporary breather, six more charged at him. Four were cleaned up in the matter of seconds, but before Claude could dispatch the other two, they blew themselves up. Luckily for Claude, and unfortunately for the attacking Yardies, they were about three metres too short to have any real effect on Claude. However, the blast sent Claude flying off the car and landing a further five metres away from where he was. He picked himself up, clenched his teeth, and opened up on the first van. The AK clip rapidly began to dwindle down…20, 19, 18, 17, 16…0.

The first van was smoking when Claude's assault rifle gave a shudder and clicked. Cursing under his breath, Claude back-pedalled and slipped another clip into the assault rifle, before firing upon the fresh set of Yardies charging towards him. _Bang. Bang. Bang. _Six shots, six kills. They showed Claude as a deadly model of accuracy and precision as the Yardies slumped down onto the ground. Claude hit the smoking van with bullets, watching it explode in a plume of fire and smoke as the remaining bombs sent the van flying sky-high. He turned to the second van, raining lead upon the framework like the fireworks on the 4th of July. As Yardies exited from the back, they were caught in the relentless crossfire, and as Claude dropped his fourth Yardie, one of his bullets connected with the explosive, and once more, the Rumpo was up in flames.

Claude didn't need long to take out the last Rumpo. Two bullets pinged into the gas tank simultaneously, and one last burst of fireworks did the job. Claude gave a sigh, and kicked the ground in fury. He entered the Manana and was about to park it over one of the dead corpses, when he discovered a briefcase sitting on the back seat. Reaching over and grabbing the case, he flipped it open, revealing rows of green. There were also several packets of SPANK, as usual, and along with them lining up the sides, plus a note from King Courtney talking about any survivors paging him after they had completed their mission, and Claude smirked as a rather evil thing came to mind…

He grabbed the parked Manana, and headed over to 8-Ball's to fix a bomb activated by a detonator, and paid him an extra $8000 for one of his special sensors, which would beep when someone entered the car. Then, he parked the Manana back at the car-park, and paged King Courtney "yo king we beat the shit out of him, come and meet us over here, we is smoking the spank in the briefcase at the back." He scribbled out the original note, and wrote a few words. Then, he left the note on the front seat and smiled expectantly as he shut the doors and headed back to his Yakuza Stinger, driving off, quite pleased with his day's work.

King Courtney was sitting down for one of his Jamaican exotic martinis when his pager beeped. He smiled a cheesy grin as he read the message, and called out to his men "Hey, we is got him!" They all cheered, and packed around the Sumo Wordman.

"What does that mean, yo?" asked one of them.

"Those dudes want me to go over there, check it out. They say once I get there, they're getting high!"

"Don't you want one of us to go?" queried on of the other Yardies.

"Nah, I'll go myself. Get me my Lobo ready!" shouted Courtney to one of the females waiting outside the room.

Five minutes later, with a wide smile on his face, King Courtney headed out to his polished Yardie Lobo, with super-hydraulics and nitro, entered, and drove off. After reaching the place at Bedford Point, he exited his car, and took out something-not a gun, but a cigar. He lighted it up and puffed, sighing contently. Unfortunately, the smell of the marijuana masked him from something much more sinister…

He headed over to the Manana, opening up the door, and was surprised to see no-one there and the briefcase gone. Instead, there was only a note on the front seat. As he read it, a sudden realisation came to him.

"_King Courts-Thanks for the cash-Catalina's ex."_

Before the Yardie kingpin could react, the car was vaporised, taking him and all his authority with it…


	18. Round The Twist

**A/N: **Back again. Another modification has been made-I've dragged 'Shima' after 'Smackdown' in order to fit in with my events. Here it is-oh, I've put a completely-stupid spoof of OG Loc as well.

In Liberty City's huge crime underworld, news spreads very quickly throughout. Within twenty minutes of King Courtney's death at an unfortunate incident involving the man he had set up to kill, the news had spread through the Yardie territory in Newport, and quickly reached the ears of the leader of the Colombian Cartel, Catalina. It had also spread across the Callahan Bridge, to the rebuilding Mafia, the Diablos, and the Triads. The most surprising of all this though, was that none of this had reached the ears of Kenji Kasen, the Yakuza and owner of the most powerful casino in Liberty City, by the time he had called his hitman on a job. All that he had heard of the issue, was that the Yardie and Cartel alliance were 'going well', and he was furious with Claude.

Claude just thought that it would be another mission. The moment he was shown through the doors of Kenji's private room, he went to bow, but was halted by the sight of Kenji storming towards him.

"YOU! It was just the right time for you to show you worthless face!" Kenji shouted, motioning to push Claude, but Claude lazily blocked and sent him flying back.

"Your attempts to dissuade the Jamaicans have been wholly inadequate. The Yardies have dealers that are pushing SPANK on the streets. The Columbians are laughing at us, laughing at ME! This is the last chance for you to prove my sister's faith in you. Wash your shame in rivers of our enemies' blood!" Kenji growled angrily.

Claude rolled his eyes and stalked outside in fury. He nearly knocked over a Yakuza informant moving inside to inform Kenji of a vital piece of information, and he headed outside.

_So he doesn't believe in me?_ Claude thought furiously as he entered his Yakuza Stinger, slamming the door for good measure. _After I fucking had to do all that crap like blowing a hole through a police station to rescue his precious Kanbu, and also blow the shit out of the Columbian deal?_ He hit the ignition, and sped off, fuming in anger.

Unfortunately, Claude's arrival was just a bit early, not at 'just the right time' as Kenji said. After Claude had headed out, the Yakuza informant entered and Kenji spun around, looking flustered.

"Yes, Yukahaza?" he asked.

"Sir, we've got big news. King Courtney of the Yardies has been killed by a car bomb, probably set off by our #1 hitman. The Yardies and the Cartel have broken off their alliance; the SPANK pushers are coming off the streets!" announced the informant in triumph.

Kenji ran to his window, and saw Claude's Stinger race off. _Oh shit_, he murmured. He shouldn't have dented Claude's pride…

By the time he had reached Newport, Claude had calmed down considerably, after a couple of randomly rude songs, songs such as "Family Reunion". As the last words of '_Oh, is this thing on?_' were uttered, Claude grinned, and eagerly waited for what was next. Then, the voice of the anchorman of "Comedy Fusion", a mixture of music with comedy issues.

"Welcome back to Comedy Fusion, today, we've got a real special for you lot. We've managed to pick up this lil' gem, and guess what? It's that man OG Loc again, and from what we've got, he seems to be desperate for money. He's done a few recordings…and this is what we've got…" the anchorman paused, as a poor-sound recording came on.

"Emo version," a voice announced.

"Yo yo yo, I'm OG Loc and I'm EMO! Emo, emo, emo, bitches, and whoever disrespects me will be killed by emo...guys…" came OG Loc's voice.

Claude wheezed, and nearly cracked up with laughter. But he calmed down just in time to hear the next one:

"Country version."

"Yo, I'm Loc and I no' that each day, I work each day and hard each day until my limbs are busted so…SHUT UP!"

"Pop version."

"Oh, I'm OG and I'm…uh…POP!"

"_Proper_ Rap version."

"Hey! Wait a second; you say I'm not a proper rapper? I'll show you, yo, I'm OG Loc and I'm a hardcore gangster, ice cold, baby!"

"Uh…R&B version."

"Yo yo, I'm OG Loc and one day I was working at Burger Shot, and I was lonely, so I decided to RAP! Yo yo yo, I'm OG Loc and I'm a ice cold killa and I'm-"

"Loc, this is an R&B version."

"Shut up! I did that part! Now I can do what I like! You promised me a ten minute recording session after all this crap, and the R&B version was the last part!"

"Oh shit," grumbled the recorder, and everything quickly tuned back to the 'Comedy Fusion' main room.

By then, Claude and the anchorman were cracking up. The anchorman barely managed to steady himself before restarting again.

"Wow…haha…all right, let's get back on-topic. Now after the release of his controversial album, Mad Dogg has…"

Claude slowly turned off the radio, and feeling much happier, set about finding a Yardie dealer to paste. It didn't take too long either. He spotted a Yardie dealer sitting by a stall, holding a stack of packets of SPANK. He was loaded too, with an AK-47, but that didn't worry Claude. He sped his car at the dealer, and the Yardie didn't know what hit him.

As he raced around, looking for another drug pusher, his beeper rang, and this time, it was Kenji. Claude was about to delete it, but decided against it, and luckily, he did so. The page read:

"_Konnichiwa, Claude-san. Sorry about getting angry at you earlier, totally out of my honour. I've received information that the Yardies are pulling back their dealers on the streets; you don't have to kill them but I'll get you some firepower if you get a few of them."_

Claude shrugged, and his Stinger went back on cruise mode. Half an hour later, five Yardies dealers lay in pools of blood and Claude could feel happy with his work. Driving back to Kenji's Casino, he received three boxes of ammunition and an M16 army assault rifle. As he exited, Kenji suddenly called:

"Hey, would you mind if you did one last job for me? The Yakuza protection money is being paid today, and our regular debt collector called in "sick", so I'd be grateful if you did the work for me. I'll give you a few extra thousand dollars for this, okay?" Kenji asked, taking out a map of Staunton Island with red spots marked on.

Claude shrugged as usual; his dark eyes flickering as he slowly raised his head and nodded. Then, with a turn of his heel, he was off.

As usual, being a Yakuza delivery boy involved driving around in the gangcar, the Yakuza Stinger, and once again Claude was on this path. He laid the M16 on the passenger seat, and made a round throughout Staunton Island, collecting a couple of cases of money. However, just before he reached the third case of money, he spotted a Diablo holding the case, with an Uzi in his other hand. As Claude drew near, the gangster whipped around and fired a short burst of bullets towards the Stinger. Even though the bullets embedded themselves into the shiny framework of silver, the Diablo shouldn't have bothered. In an instant, Claude's assault rifle was out, and made the Diablo look like a piece of Swiss cheese which had been over-ripened by the bacteria. Claude frowned as he drew the Stinger to a halt, and grabbed the executive briefcase from the bloody mess.

As he slid by the location of the final business, he saw that all the windows there were broken, and bullet holes lined the outside of the building. As he made his way up the steps towards the door, the shopkeeper stormed out, his face as red as a beetroot.

"I can't pay you, and I wouldn't pay you if I could! Some young gang just jacked out the place! They took everything!" yelled the man furiously, puffing with his breath as he spoke.

"You guys are useless. If I wanted better protection, I could have hired the police station," the shopkeeper snarled.

Claude spun away, but not before the shopkeeper had a parting shot:

"What kind of Yakuza are you anyway?"

Claude turned back around, and fired a short burst whizzing past the shopkeeper's face, and connecting with the head of a man depicted in a painting. The shopkeeper quickly slammed the door shut, acknowledging Claude's warning.

That quickly left Claude to his thoughts. _Young gang…earlier mishap…Diablos,_ he realised. Especially after that Diablo had been guarding the case. But the real trouble now for Claude was to find where they would have gone to. He guessed that it would be somewhere in Hepburn Heights, probably nearby the telephone booth. He decided to pay a visit to the lot of them, and realised that he would have to be a bit careful with the Mafia as well, especially if someone had seen him blast Salvatore in the face with his sniper rifle.

After sailing through Staunton Island and across the Callahan Bridge, Claude didn't need too long to find Hepburn Heights and the site of the telephone booth. As usual, he had a reconnaissance run first, and discovered about twenty Uzi-toting Diablos monitoring the place, and noticed the one in the centre holding an AK-47 and clutching a briefcase as well.

_They must have scrapped for months for just that_, Claude thought.

The Yakuza Stinger purred to a halt, and Claude exited the car, feeling a million dollars for some reason. _Story cliché_, he thought as he took out his M16 and slowly made his way towards the large group of Diablos. Just as he was about to open fire, he realised that shotting a bunch of Diablos up was barely even small-time. What he needed was something more stylish…or cheekier.

It didn't seem much to Richo Gonzalez when he saw a Sentinel roaring down the street. _Another young fool thinkin' he's hardcore_, he thought as he gripped his AK-47 tighter and examined the expensive leather briefcase with thin gold lining around the edges. However, he did take notice when the Sentinel slid out of control, and crashed. A bunch of cigars tipped out, and the Diablos all began to investigate. Richo dropped his briefcase, and did the same. Unknown to them, a man exited from the driver's seat just before it crashed, and sneaked towards the case, snatching it and tip-toeing away before any of the gang members could see him…

As Claude sped away, he was rolling his eyes in disbelief. He knew that the plan had about 99.99999 of failing, but it seemed that some gangs really loved their smokes…Yardies, Diablos and Cartel. He dumped the case next to him, and tossed his M16 into the back, glad that he didn't have to use it.

Then slowly, with the warm hum of a motor, the sports car was off.


	19. New Events: Spare Parts

**A/N: **Back again, and with a new chapter of "Spare Parts", the Claude Speed side-story. This time, we see Claude deal with something new in his life…love.

Claude Speed hit the hairpin bend, and spun a 180-degree turn to finally shrug off the brave challenge from the two ZR-350s, and headed for home. When it was reached, he jumped out of his new Banshee, and winked at Black Greg, standing at the finish line, as usual, waiting to present the prize money.

"So, Claude, how many is it now?" he asked, grinning as he produced a wad of bills, and shoved them in Claude's hand.

"Uh, about twenty?" smirked Claude, acknowledging the cash by stuffing it into his wallet, which was already overflowing with bills.

"Yeah, something like that. Guess I owe you a beer too," he said, winking.

Claude followed Black Greg in silence inside the Angel Pine pub where he had first made his start into the San Andreas countryside races.

"Hey'r Claude. Wun again?" asked one of the rednecks leaning against the wall of the pub. When Claude had first entered the seedy bar, he had been the one who was fighting with another redneck for cash and for the pure entertainment of others.

Claude nodded, and gave him a thumbs-up as he and Greg entered the pub.

However, they didn't have quite the chance to get a beer. Instead, there was some sort of commotion at the bar, where the bartender was being held up by a Spanish-looking woman dressed in a black sports bra and pants.

"Give me that glass or I'll fucking blow your brains out!" she screamed in anger, taking out a pistol.

"Whoa, whoa, calm down, lady, you're psycho!" shouted the bartender frantically, while rolling his eyes when the woman wasn't looking. He quickly filled a glass of beer and passed it over to the woman who snatched it and drained it in one gulp.

Claude and Black Greg exchanged knowledgeable glances, but stopped as the woman approached them. As she drew closer, Claude realised that she was quite beautiful, and began to stare at her. Luckily for him, the woman didn't mind too much, and she settled next to them.

"So this is the guy I heard wins all the races around here…" she drawled suavely, in her full Spanish accent.

"Uh…yes…" Claude stuttered, looking quite uncomfortable.

"I got a real shit boyfriend right now…wanna go on a date?" she asked.

Claude stared at Black Greg, who winked at him, tongue-out.

"Uh…all right…how about tomorrow night at the Bull's Horn?" he answered, trying to keep his face straight.

"Why the fuck wait till tomorrow? Let's go now; I told my boyfriend that I'd meet him at some farm; I'll drop him there."

"Whatever." Claude sighed. He knew he was attracted to the woman, but he also knew that this was going to be a long day…

The two headed out back to Claude's parked Banshee, and Claude moodily drove over to the 'farm', following the woman's instructions. Half an hour later, they arrived, and Claude noticed a well-built black man leaning against a ZR-350, and looking quite peeved. The two of them exited, and all of a sudden, the woman planted a kiss on Claude's cheek, before moving over to the black man, suddenly, wielding a crowbar. Claude could hear the two's conversation.

"Damn, man, now what?" asked the man, looking more flustered by the second.

"PIG!" the woman shouted, brandishing the crowbar.

"What? What'd I do now?"

"Oh, so this is where you have been, eh? THIS is how you repay my tenderness-"(Claude coughed silently) "-You prefer the curves of some car to those of a real woman?"

"Look, Catalina, you called it off, remember, 'just business'!" protested the man, but looking on the verge of hilarity just at that moment.

Catalina spun around in fury, her eyes burning red.

"What kind of man are you? When I say 'Just business", I mean that I love you!" she screamed, bashing the car with the crowbar.

"When I say, I no interested no more, I mean that I long for you!" she continued vehemently, smashing the car with the metal rod yet again.

"And when I say I missed you…!" Catalina braced to whack the car a third time, but the man stopped her, rolling his eyes in frustration.

"Wait, Catalina, wait! Leave my car alone, I did this for us, for me and you!" he exclaimed, looking confused.

"It's too late. I don't love you no more. I love another, OK?" Catalina replied, a smile playing to her lips.

"What? Then what the fuck was this about?"

"I cannot keep my passions holed up, they need a release. That was a good release, like hitting a man with a frying pan while he sleeps." Catalina said, and both Claude and the black man rolled their eyes.

"This, Carl, THIS is my new man." Catalina said, pointing at Claude, who made his best attempt to look amused.

"Are you jealous? Are you going to fight for me?"

"No, no, I can take rejection." Carl replied, looking quite triumphant as if he had got a load off his shoulders.

"You are jealous and a coward! Now lets race!" Catalina yelled, banging her fists together.

"Crazy bitch." Carl muttered, loudly enough for Catalina and Claude to hear. Then, he watched as Catalina made her way over to some farmers who had come out looking quite agitated.

Shaking his head, Claude made his way over to the man called "Carl".

"I'm sorry about that bitch," he said, looking at the ground.

"Ah well, glad she's out of my life after this shit. Good luck on dating her." Carl said sarcastically, giving him thumbs-up.

"Got any way to make her drop me? I'd rather race around this place instead of dating her." Claude said, shivering at the thought.

Carl looked thoughtful.

"Hmm, you could always drive like crap in this race…if you wanted. Then, hopefully, that bitch would drop you afterwards," he suggested.

"Well, I'm not too fond of losing at racing, but better than dating her, I guess… thanks!" Claude smiled, and headed back to his Banshee, entering it just as Catalina finished her conversation with the two farmers, completely unaware of the talk CJ and Claude had just shared.

By now, the two other racers had arrived, and they were quite dingy-looking. Two Chinese-looking men in black suits also walked over, and Claude guessed that they were race officials…if there were ever any. They waited by the starting line, and Claude quickly inspected the race map. He'd been through this path, so he knew there wouldn't be any wrong turns…which would have been better, but he wasn't quite willing to the Uranus and Sultan either. The four cars lined up for the start, and one of the men called for the start, and they were off, throwing up dust as they slid off.

Immediately, Claude knew that the Carl guy was a very good driver, and he would need his best skills to beat him if he was actually trying. Quickly, Carl made his way into the lead, while Claude pretended to drive lousily, lagging behind the two other cars. Surprisingly, Catalina kept quiet as through the race, and about three-quarters of the way through the race, with the Banshee a long way behind the others, Claude must have had a concentration lapse, as all of a sudden, he found himself bumping and locking horns with the two lesser cars. He also noticed Catalina looking at him rather dreamily._ Oh shit_, he thought. He attempted to drop his pace, but it was way too late. With no other choice, he could only cruise to the finish line, well in front of the other cars, but well behind Carl.

Immediately, Catalina was out of the car, striding towards Carl. Claude slowly followed, curious at what would happen next.

"You had the unfair advantage!" she protested.

"Being a better driver ain't no advantage." Carl replied back, winking at Claude, who returned the gesture.

"You think you're clever, but it is you who is missing the point! Not only was he racing, but he was satisfying me fully!" she snarled, and Claude gulped.

"What are you gonna say about that?" Catalina asked, giving what looking like a satisfied smile.

"The advantage of a stick shift, I guess. Yeah whatever, anyway, man, what is it, cash or pink slip?" Carl asked casually as he turned on his heel.

"There you go!" Catalina tossed a piece of paper at Carl and strode back to where Claude was standing.

"Goodbye Carl Johnson, I will NOT be missing you!" shouted Catalina as she ushered Claude into his car.

"Hey, wait a minute, bitch! What is this shit?" asked Carl furiously, reading the slip of paper.

"The deed to a garage in San Fierro. My lover needs his car so we can go to Liberty City." Catalina replied, and Claude's mind drew a blank-_Liberty City?_

"Liberty City? Yeah, whatever, have a good time." Carl muttered, trying to wipe the smile off his face, while attempting to give Claude a sorrowful look at the same time.

"I will."

"Fine."

"Okay."

"Go, I ain't gonna miss you." Carl snarled as he strode off.

"Goodbye!" yelled Catalina, her voice dripping with sarcasm as the two made their separate ways.

Even as Catalina told Claude to get in the car, Claude no longer felt the…sorrow at having a crazy bitch for a girlfriend. More so…he was falling into orbit with her…


	20. Fiery End

**A/N: **School holidays! Woot. Well, I'll try to make more of an effort to post chapters during these holidays. A couple of subtle Star Wars references here, not very obvious though. Here's the latest.

Not too long after he had retrieved the case, the protection cash was back in its 'rightful' owner's hands, Kenji Kasen and the Yakuza. Naturally, Kenji was quite pleased, and paid Claude good cash. He also advised to Claude that Ray Machowski was looking for someone to carry out a "rather big deed".

Frowning largely, Claude drove his Yakuza Stinger and parked it across the street from Belleville Park, before marching across the long green grass towards the toilets. He wrinkled his nose at the entrance, before entering. Inside, he spent a few moments looking under the toilet doors for the corrupt cop, until he heard a couple of doorsteps, and found himself staring right at Ray; and he looked pissed about something.

"That rat McAffrey." Ray snarled, pacing around the room.

"He took more bribes than anyone. He thinks he's gonna get an _honourable discharge_ if he turns state's evidence." Ray sneered, and continued pacing around.

"He just squealed! He's under armed protection in WitSec property down in Newport, some apartment behind the car park.

"Torch that place; that should flush 'em out, and you'll hunt 'em down, make sure he never talks to nobody." Ray spat, and he tossed Claude a couple of Molotov cocktails and a box of matches, before spinning and walking away.

Claude shrugged silently, but he wasn't too surprised by what Ray wanted him to do. Most stuff that occurred in this city always seemed to end up with someone murdering someone else. He shuffled over to his car, and raced off.

Phil Cassidy scratched his hair with his only remaining arm, and narrowed eyes. He flipped on the safety of the Colt 45 he gripped in his hand, and slipped it back into his pocket. Business had been rather hectic over the last few days, a lot more so than usual, and they hadn't been gang members or anything; they seemed like just regular citizens. Plus, his shooting skills were getting a bit rusty; about the last time he really had a chance to shoot at any people was way back in 1992, where he had escaped from mad Haitians with a young Chinese guy.

But before he could contemplate any more, a blue Ute; a Cartel cruiser, pulled up outside the entrance, and a man exited, loaded with a shotgun. The driver, sat back on his seat, watching intently as the Columbian Cartel man made his way up to Phil.

"Welcome to Phil's Army Surplus, what do you need?" Phil asked casually, keeping his gun out of sight.

"I demand you provide us with every M16 assault rifle and all the ammunition you have, at super-discounted price, or we'll beat the crap out of you," the Cartel man demanded, glaring at Phil.

_God, another one of these bullshit people_, Phil thought as he stared back at the gang-banger. He replied:

"Oh really?"

A look of annoyance spread over the gang member's face, but it quickly disappeared as he smirked.

"Yes. The Columbian Cartel's been looking for a long time for a good weapons supplier, and I guess we should drop by on you."

"Oh, is that so?" Phil asked, as he made to scratch his back with his arm, only to slowly move it downwards towards his pocket…

"Yes. Now produce the stuff, or we'll blow your brains out."

"Over my dead body." Phil retorted, and in a flash, his pistol was out. A crack was heard, and the Cartel man staggered back, a hole through his head. Then, he slumped to the ground.

Phil immediately turned his attention to the driver and the fuel tank, but it was too late. The Cruiser had slid around, and had sped off before Phil could squeeze off a good shot with the pistol in his only arm. Despite being pleased with the rare opportunity to practice, he only muttered: "Damn it", before loping off into his cabin premises.

It didn't take too long for Claude to locate the WitSec property, and before launching his assault, he jacked a couple of vehicles, and blockaded the garage entrance. Parking his Stinger just out of sight of anyone living in the property, he took his two Molotov cocktails and M16. Crouching down, he made his way into open space, before striking the match. For a moment, he stood motionless, before dropping the match inside the bottle containing the oil-soaked rag. Then, he tossed the explosive through one of the windows of the apartment, before quickly withdrawing his other Molotov, lighting it up, and tossing it through the other window.

It all happened very quickly. There were two explosions, and the smell of burning petrol and smoke flowed into the air. The two cars blockading the entrance made crunching sounds, and Claude hit the car that seemed to be holding the former corrupt cop with a long burst, quickly causing it to implode in a large detonation. Sprinting back to his Yakuza Stinger, he was off in an instance, like an assassin.

Phil Cassidy was a touch worried about what was going on; the Cartel was definitely going to come back, looking for revenge. He grabbed the telephone, and dialled a number; the cellphone number of his old army-mate, Ray Machowski. They'd blasted their way through the mud and thick forests crawling with Viet Cong during the War, and they had somehow had reunited when Phil shifted over to Liberty to start the Army Surplus business four years previously. But then, Phil had screwed up when covering for him, and Ray nearly was caught for corruption, and they hadn't really gotten in touch ever since. The line buzzed for a while, until eventually, there was the gruff voice of Ray Machowski answering.

"Who the hell is this?"

"It's Phil Cassidy." Phil replied coolly.

"You had a lot of courage to phone me, Phil, after what happened back in '98. What do you want?" Ray demanded angrily.

"Look, I'm down deep with the Cartel. They're threatening to beat the living daylights out of me and steal my weapons."

"And what have I got to do with this?"

"I heard you work for the Yakuza. They wouldn't like it exactly if the Cartel made off with a large stack of weapons, wouldn't they?"

Ray snorted, before coming up with his answer.

"They wouldn't mind it so much if they heard you got your brains pasted all over the pavement. No seriously, I'll send somebody to help you; I just gotta wait till he comes to receive some pay for a bit of laundry work he did for me."

"What, something to do with saving your behind from arrest again?" Phil asked sarcastically.

"Shut up or I'll just call him off and leave you to sleep with the fishes."

There was a cough, and the line went silent. Phil grinned to himself, forgetting his troubles for a moment. It was typical for Ray to get pissed about being a corrupted cop. But he would really need any aid he could take if he was going to beat the Cartels back, as if he had any chance, and getting Ray any more annoyed wouldn't help matters.

It didn't take Claude long to be back at the Belleville Park toilet cubicles, but just as he was expecting some pay, Ray requested he did another job.

"Hey kid, over here! An old army buddy of mine runs a business in Rockford. We saw action in Nicaragua, back when the country knew what it was doing. Some Cartel scum tried to rough him up earlier today, and said they would be coming back to take his stuff. He's going to need some back-up and in return he'll probably give you some discounted stuff on his 'hardware'." Ray growled, and Claude stared questionably at him.

"I'd go myself but the old sciatica's playing up again." Claude coughed, and Ray repeated the same action, quite unconvincingly

"So, err-hmm, good luck…and take this…" Ray muttered, his face beet-red as he gave Claude a wallet filled with bills.

Claude glared at the corrupt cop, before storming out of the toilet. Nonetheless, he anticipated the challenge of killing some more Colombian Cartel members, and wiping their blood in Catalina's face. He soon found himself pulling up by a walled area with the sign "Phil's Army Surplus" stuck at the front. He got out of his Yakuza Stinger, and made his way inside, heaving an AK-47 in one hand, and an M16 in the other, looking rather like some sort of super-soldier.

He walked inside the area, and found himself staring at a parked Barracks OL army truck and…a Rhino tank. A red-haired man dressed in army gear, but with only one arm, made his way towards Claude. He inspected Claude up and down for a moment, and then, looked for anyone behind him or next to him, before gasping in surprise.

"Ray told me…but I thought there'd be more of you." 'Phil' grumbled.

"I can't believe those yellow-bellied bastards left me without proper cover again! Well, three arms are better than one, so grab whatever you need." Phil said moodily, pointing at the pile of M16s sitting in a box next to the tank, and the rocket launcher, lying on the front of the tank.

"Those Colombians will be here any minute!" Phil shouted, before shuffling off. Claude watched him go, and then his mouth opened wide. Phil Cassidy?

Before he had a chance to gape any longer, he heard the squeal of some tyres coming closer, and almost instantly, he climbed onto the tanks, and seized the rocket launcher. Moments later, two Cartel Cruisers roared to a halt just outside the gate, and four Cartel men, armed to the teeth with shotguns and AK-47s, jumped out, guns blazing. Claude ducked under a couple of bullets, and Phil shouted, firing his M16:

"Holy shit, they're here! LOCK AND LOAD!"

Claude did just that. He steadied the launcher, ducking another hail of bullets, before firing straight at one of the Cartel Cruisers. The rocket flew out, and hit the Cruiser, exploding it in a ball of fire, while the impact rocked the ground and sent all eight Cartel men crashing into the other Cruiser, which was smoking. Claude quickly dropped the rocket launcher, and fired both his AK-47 and M-16 at the doomed Ute, and the result for the eight Cartel men was a simple foregone conclusion.

However, the threat wasn't over yet. Somehow, two Cartel Cruisers had snuck in through a side entrance, and the eight men inside them were already out and shooting. Phil was taking cover, and peeking out occasionally to try and pick one off. Meanwhile, another Cartel Cruiser appeared at the front entrance, loaded with even more men. Claude opened up on these fresh troops with relish, and cut them down before they had a chance to even aim.

_Blah,_ Claude muttered as he reloaded his M16 quickly, dropping his Kalashnikov as he did so. Then, he picked it up, and set off to where Phil was battling the seven remaining Cartel, having picked one off. Claude assisted him in his attempt to clean the rest of them up, though he had an extremely hairy moment when a bullet almost grazed his nose. Cursing with surprise, he took cover next to Phil, and they battled with the Cartel in a World War I trench-style dogfight, taking them down one by one until Claude eventually settled the issue when he expended half a clip of M16 to drop the last four men in quick succession.

Groaning with annoyance, Phil picked himself up with his remaining arm, and his expression quickly changed to a grin.

"Heh-hey! If I'd teamed up with you in Nicaragua maybe I'd still have my arm!" Phil said, and Claude stared at him in a scoffing sort of manner. Of course, he knew that Phil Cassidy had blown his arm off in an accident involving some explosive alcohol, Boomshine. Tommy Vercetti had informed him of that when he told Phil was covering Claude secretly during some mission he had to do.

But he didn't need to mention that, and of course, he couldn't either.

"If you need any firepower, just drop by and take what you need from the lockers. Now get out of here, I'll handle the cops." Phil said, unaware of Claude's annoyed gaze.

Claude naturally wasn't too happy as he left Phil's Army Depot, but it was just as well that it was job done, and along with the cash that Ray would probably offer him, he had some access to some shiny new firepower.

_Knock-off time_, he thought to himself as he ran to his car, hearing the buzz of police sirens drawing closer.

**End note:** Bah, once again, done. This chapter took me quite a while, really couldn't seem to get into a decent rhythm. Oh yeah, my apologies to anyone who thought my random OG Loc spoofs earlier were lame…this isn't supposed to be a humour story, I was just wanting to include a bit of Loc-bashing inside.


	21. Breakout

**A/N: **Back again, I was pretty inactive in my "holidays", wasn't I? I've decided to sort of "screw up" the story: Claude simply doesn't talk because he can't be bothered to; he occasionally speaks, but that's only when he can't control himself. Here's the next.

Claude gulped down the last drops of Coke from the aluminium can, and tossed it into the rubbish bin from across the shop. Wiping his mouth with his napkin, he nodded approvingly at one of the guys standing at the counter, before moving back outside to his Yakuza Stinger.

Liberty City at night was in stark contrast to every other city in America. The night lights would illuminate ghastly reflections across the city, casinos and clubs slowly got rowdier, sleazy occurrences were common, but most of all, crime rate tripled. Car thefts, fights, shootings, were common place in Liberty City life. But at night, you'd expect this to happen on every corner. That was why you'd turn into every street, with your fists, feet, or car ready to get out of any trouble you could get into. Because if you didn't, you'd usually be lying on the pavement, not moving a muscle.

As Claude exited the fast food shop, he came face to face with a Columbian Cartel SPANK dealer. Although he wouldn't have been surprised if the man had recognised him, he gave an annoyed sigh as the man approached him, pistol out, and holding packets of SPANK.

"Hey…you that fucking idiot Catalina shot…she did you real good…and now I kill you…" the man snarled.

Claude didn't respond, but as the man raised his gun, Claude's reactions were lightning. With one smooth motion, his hand lashed out, and the back of it smashed against the man's face. Following it up with a kick to the guts, the fight was all over within seconds.

"She might have done me, but I did you well enough." Claude muttered, quietly, and then was surprised. He hadn't really meant to talk, but then again, he hadn't tried ever since he had been shot in the throat. He decided to continue not talking-it would go much better. With that thought, he continued striding back to his Yakuza Stinger, thinking that he really needed a long break from all the criminal stuff that he had to perform.

As if going by script, Claude's pager rang. Sighing, he turned it on, expecting to see another new job message. Sure enough, it was, but luckily for him, Ray had been lenient.

"_Kid, I might have a job for you that I want you to do in three days-take the next couple of days off or something, then meet me at the usual place, at dusk-around six."_

Glad that the job hadn't ruined his prepared time for some R&R, Claude quickly turned off his Sumo Wordman, entered his Stinger, and drove back to his hideout.

Dumping himself onto the couch, Claude slowly took a look at his flat. His weapons were hidden in a cupboard in the kitchen. His makeshift bed was next to the couch, and so was the TV. The large stacks of cash he had earned for his jobs were placed next to the television, and all his spare clothes were settled in a wardrobe in a room next door, where a washing machine with some other assortments were. Finally, there was a toilet, shower and bath. Not too bad for a place that hadn't been used for a few months, until recently.

_It could do with a bit of furnishing_, Claude thought, but knew it would be rather useless, and could really blow his cover. Something he hadn't revealed to anyone was that he owned a house in Shoreside Vale in Wichita Gardens, not too far from Cedar Grove, where the Columbian Cartel appeared in droves. Despite the dangers of living to his former gang members, he had already decided to shift all his stuff there as soon as the lift bridge was reopened from repairs (a big chunk of it had just fallen into the sea, a month before the bank robbery). Claude hoped that the Porter tunnel would be completed slightly quicker too, as that would also provide an easy access path to the three islands.

Finally finished with his musing, Claude turned on the TV, hit the sack, and fell asleep with the soft buzz in his ears.

**Henson Morgue, Liberty City Ghost Town:**

If someone entered the morgue during night, they'd immediately be chilled to the skin by the smell of death in the air, and the many tombstones lining the grass. But there was not that feeling tonight.

Tonight was the annual, but infamous Liberty City "Morguerie" Bash was being held. This "social gathering" contained some of Liberty City's underground crime officials, and was a sleaze-fest for pimps and their prostitutes. Things would get sometimes very dangerous, but all around, the merrymaking was shared by the less-innocent people of the town.

Of course, there were gang leaders such as El Burro and D-Ice leading the scenes, along with several higher-ranked Mafia henchmen. However, what many didn't know was that Donald Love, successful business tycoon and owner of multi-million-dollar-earning Love Media, was one of the participants of this "Bash". Here, he would show more of his younger side, of many years ago, of his 70s party style, and would step away from being the seemingly indestructible entrepreneur that the public viewed him as.

Unfortunately for Love, the FBI had been tracking him, more as a borderline scan than a full investigation, and had discovered blips on the radar. They had found out that he wasn't completely out of touch with crime, and although not ruthless, still hard-nosed in keeping it that way. That was why they had sent Alan Lambert and Wesley Morrison on their way to do undercover work, posing as Mafia men.

"Shit, do we have to wear these black sunglasses?" Lambert muttered as he turned the wheel of the flashy Cheetah onto the street of the morgue.

"Duh, all those mob guys wear them. Some sort of tradition, or something. Forellis…Leones, they all wear them, even though they're always at each other's throats." Morrison replied.

"Though I heard the Forelli family have never been the same, ever since Tommy Vercetti pummelled them back in 1986, or when some random guy killed the Don, his capo, ten or so underbosses, and about ten made-men in '92."

"Yeah, well, the Leones seem to be on the same front. You heard how Salvatore Leone got assassinated not too long ago? Shot in the face twice as he attempted to enter a car. Crazy shit, the sniper must be some sort of freak."

"Yeah, well, you better shoot like that tonight if we need to; otherwise we're going to be sleeping with the fishes by the morning." Lambert retorted.

They were equipped with Heckler Koch 9mm MP5s; top-notch for getting out of sticky situations, which Lambert knew that they were going to get into tonight. He was the older of the two, but not by much; he was 26, Morrison was 24, but he was surprised that the FBI had picked the two for them for the task-they weren't the most experienced, to say the least. The only real thing that got them close enough to be ideal for the task was that they were young, and perhaps could "fit in" at the morgue party. Or maybe the FBI was just being idiots.

Sighing, Lambert checked his stuff once more as they parked nearby, next to a Mafia Sentinel and a Diablo Stallion. There were a couple of motorbikes across the street, both the kind that automatically started. Lambert inspected his sub-machine gun, pocket knife, camera for any possible evidence, and tear gas, before deciding everything was satisfactory…enough. Tucking the stuff away, he turned his glasses into a better position, before waiting for Morrison to exit the car. Together, they made their way to the entrance of the morgue, where they could already hear the sounds of random techno sort of music. The guard at the front, noticing their Mafia-style dress, nodded slowly at them before allowing the two of them to enter.

Lambert and Morrison shoved their way through the crowd of people dancing, and headed over to a bin. Then, they took out small cups, sealed tightly and with beer inside, and tipped them into their mouths. Swishing them for a while, they spat the alcohol out, both frowning as they did so.

"Man, I hate that shit. I don't know why some people like it…" Lambert groaned, trying to get the taste out of his mouth.

"I don't mind beer usually, but this stuff is probably imported from Carcer City, it'd do bad rather than good, these guys are just going to think we're weirdos." Morrison grumbled, staring at the large number of people doing a dance to some random 80s song.

Nevertheless, the smell of booze in their mouths helped them blend in a bit more with the noisy shindig, and they quickly set off, looking to see if Donald Love was actually around, or if this was all a waste of time. They made a note of the other people they found on the way as well; people such as Luigi, owner of the Sex Club in Portland and the gang leaders D-Ice an El Burro. King Courtney would have usually been participating as well, but ever since he had been blown up, the Yardies had generally come to a standstill.

After half an hour of seemingly pointless searching, Lambert was about to concede defeat, when he noticed a familiar-looking man sharing a drink with a couple of guys in black leather jackets. He motioned for Morrison, and they slowly crept in closer for a better look. It was Donald Love, all right, only that he was in a rather subtle disguise.

"Okay, get a few shots of him; that's enough evidence for the FBI to prove that it's him." Lambert hissed, and Morrison raised the camera, clicking the button three times in succession.

The light flashed, and the two jacket men spun around, but the two FBI agents were already off, moving into the crowd.

"Okay, now that we've got this stuff, we should stay for a while-not to get anybody suspicious. We should keep track of Love as well-follow him if he leaves anywhere." Morrison said, tucking the camera away.

"Yeah, all right, but we should make it quick-I can't stand this place for any longer." Lambert muttered.

"God, you're starting to sound like my kiddo." Morrison mumbled, before they headed off again, keeping a close eye on Donald Love.

In the end, the two agents did get cracking on Donald Love-they took a few photos of him shaking hands with what looked like a pimp, playing cards, and drinking wine. Eventually, they followed Donald Love to a couple of guys in blue shirts, before he suddenly disappeared.

"Damn." Lambert muttered.

They quickly sprinted past a few people, but managed to overhear a conversation:

"Donald Love, he's left the party…he thinks some people are following him…what a paranoid asshole…"

With this new-found information, they quickly ran towards the exit, and had nearly made it, only to be confronted by a Diablo gangster, who was holding an empty bottle in one hand, and looking quite woozy.

"Ahh…wow…hehe, you two look like…those random dudes, y'know, Starpee and….Hootch…" the man drawled, and he staggered.

The man fell onto Lambert's shoulders, and he brushed him back roughly. Unfortunately, the man had grabbed onto his coat just at that point, and ripped it back, exposing a black shirt with "FBI" stitched in along the back.

Everyone in close proximity stopped all they were doing, and just stared. Then, two Mafia men with AK-47s moved forward, their guns pointing at Lambert and Morrison.

"You die, you fucking Feds," one snarled.

"Not if I could help it. Take this, biatch!" shouted Morrison, and in an instant, two teargas cans were out. The Feds quickly flipped open the tabs, and threw them before anyone could react, before they were off, and running back towards their Cheetah. They could hear coughing and choking behind them as the gas did their job.

Then, Lambert had to duck to narrowly dodge a bullet flying at them. It was a couple of Mafia guards, who had probably heard about the commotion, and they were shooting. Morrison covered Lambert as he orientated himself, and blasted one of them, before Lambert's MP5 was out and ready, shooting at the other one. Three bullets struck, all striking the man in the temple. He collapsed in a heap, and the two FBI agents rushed towards their sports cars. They were locked.

"Damn! I left the keys back at the place where we used that beer!" Morrison groaned.

"Well, shit, we better get on one of those PCJ-600s, then." Lambert said, shaking his head as he motioned for Morrison to follow.

By now, there were Diablo and Mafia members streaming out of the morgue, firing aimlessly at the two as they sped off on the silver-coloured motorcycle. Lambert was driving, and Morrison was holding his MP5, covering them from anyone in hot pursuit behind.

"Are you willing to reveal that this thing is a bit too much like those random action movies we watch at the HQ?" Morrison asked, groaning as three Mafia Sentinels and three Diablo Stallions began to tear after them.

"Yes, now just shut the hell up and shoot the bloody things!" Lambert called, as he focused on the road.

The two had to get across the ghost town over to the bridge, which was known by most Liberty City residents as "Bridge Mystery". It was blocked off from the rest of Liberty City, and had a dirt ramp on the ghost town side, which could allow the two to escape. Lambert hit the gas, and he pushed the PCJ-600 to its fullest, hoping to outrace the Mafia Sentinels and Diablo Stallions. The strategy worked well enough, with the six chasing gang-cars keeping out of striking range, while it allowed Morrison a few shots, occasionally.

However, Morrison did do the job. Firing off a few rounds, he quickly shouted a cry of triumph, as he hit the windscreen, and struck one of the Mafia drivers. The car skidded out of control, piling against another Mafia Sentinel and a Diablo Stallion. Three down.

Although Morrison continued to shoot at the cars, the motorbike reached the ramp at Bridge Mystery not too long after the destruction of the first three cars. Lambert steadied the motorbike, but then realised he was driving at the ramp too slowly. He hit the gas, and as he ascended up the ramp, he leant back. The PCJ-600 gained height and the back wheel bumped against the back of the barrier that kept the rest of Liberty City from Ghost Town via that entrance, nearly throwing Morrison off, but sending the motorbike sky-high into the air…towards the water.

"Oh shit!" Morrison shouted, one, that his butt was nailed from the impact of the back wheel, and the other, that when he saw that they were flying in the air towards the water.

Lambert desperately tried to control the bike, in order to push it back inwards. He landed in a stoppie, and he slid to the left, turning the bike half a revolution, before coming to a stop. Then, the two were off again.

"You learnt that thing from that black-jacketed dude on TV, didn't you?" laughed Morrison as they sped along the empty streets to make their escape.

"Sort of…I took a series of stunting lessons a couple of years ago. Could you believe the instructor was Tommy Vercetti himself?" Lambert smirked.

"Pff, yeah, but he probably didn't tell you how to air to bump like that, didn't he? Probably just stuff like BSMs, corks, spins, grinds, grabs and krail flips. And those random double or triple flips…"

"So? That's still a lot of stunts learnt. We're just lucky we got out of here alive. Now let's get back to HQ, and give the evidence to take across the town for inspection."

With that, the silver PCJ-600 was off, carrying two very relieved and two very lucky men, belonging to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.


	22. Oppurtunity: Spare Parts

"So this is Mexico…" Claude Speed muttered as his ZR-350 sports car pulled an illegal turn across one of the intersections in the vast metropolis of Mexico City. Cars hooted furiously as he performed this action, but he ignored it quite deliberately.

Claude's girlfriend and partner-in-crime Catalina was sitting in the seat next to him, scowling fiercely as usual, but even she was reasonably impressed with what she was seeing. The two of them had never been outside the American boundaries, despite the fact that the latter had a Hispanic family, and this place was completely new to them-different cars, people, and perhaps lifestyle.

"So where are we suppose to go now?" Claude asked, peering forward, trying to pick out a place that looked even remotely like a hotel.

"We find a hotel." Catalina said flatly, more subdued than usual.

"Yeah, what I'm trying to say, is, where the fuck can we find a hotel?"

"Don't ask me." Catalina frowned, and she turned away, scowling again.

Claude sighed deeply, and pulled the sports car over to the kerb. It had been a long journey since the countryside racing days of San Andreas. After the two of them had left the dirt and trees of the San Andreas countryside, they had gone north, past Las Venturas and to a reasonably small town where Catalina had wanted to rob the bank there, and Claude agreed, thinking of it as a way to get some funds ready when they got to Liberty City. But during that operation, cops had intervened as usual, and they had been forced back down south. Whenever they made an escape from justice, Catalina would usually reset the chase a day later by killing some cop on the street, or robbing yet another bank, remote or not. And so, they went on the run for three years, before Catalina finally agreed to stop going around like a psycho. By that time, the ZR-350, battered by the chases and only occasionally restored by mod shops and Pay N' Sprays, had been pushed all the way down into Mexico City.

The two of them were hugely lucky to be alive. They had been chased by swarms of cops for over fifty kilometres before they reached the border between the two countries, and there was even more trouble from the law when they got over the line when Catalina had decided to pull off the biggest heist yet, stealing a large amount of money from the second biggest bank in the country itself. By coincidence, a branch of El Banco Corrupto Grande, the vault so famously robbed by Tommy Vercetti ten years previously, was the largest one in Mexico, and located in the heart of Mexico City. Claude knew that if it hadn't been for her promise, Catalina would have instantly chosen to go for the stolen cash, and probably would have risked being pursued down to Colombia just for that.

But for now, they had enough cash-maybe too much cash, considering that they had to make small deposits in ATMs all along the way in Claude's bank account, which he had created just before he left for the San Andreas countryside in 1990. They had a good $150,000 ready for anything they wanted, but for now, the two simply wanted to lie low before reconfiguring their destination back up north to Liberty City, the location they had wanted to go nearly four years ago, before Catalina's thirst for cash had set in.

Still no hotels. Claude muttered in annoyance, as he turned into another long street, hoping for some sign of a place to stay. This part of the city seemed to be the business district, and was chock-full of tall skyscrapers, shops and restaurants.

"Fancy having tacos for dinner?" he asked quietly as he gripped the wheel while waiting for a red light to flicker.

"Yeah, all right. But only after we find some place to release these passions inside…" Catalina smirked.

Claude shook his head, smiling to himself. By "Passions holed inside", that had nothing to do with sex, but instead, knowing Catalina, it had something to do with bashing men in the face with a frying pan, or any sort of similar metal object.

"Can't you throw the hammer that we used to bash open windows when we were robbing stuff? Aim for a pedestrian, and think of it as a game." Claude suggested, rolling his eyes.

Catalina shrugged nonchantly, but she agreed silently, and Claude pulled the car to a halt. She moved to the back of the car, and took out a metal hammer, tossing it from hand to hand as she made her way back to the seat.

When she re-entered the side seat, Claude slowly pushed the accelerator forward, and as the ZR-350 gained speed, Catalina rolled open the windows, and chucked the hammer at the first pedestrian she saw. It hit the man at full pelt, and he doubled over, screaming in pain, while Catalina began screaming herself, only it was from laughter. She pulled her head back inside the car, her hair flying in all directions, and absolutely cracked up. Claude continued driving, shaking his head in disbelief at Catalina's favourite form of entertainment.

After about five hundred metres of pretty slow driving, Catalina stopped thinking that it was totally side-splitting, and sat straight up again. But before she could recap what had happened with the man and the hammer, there was a loud screech of metal, and the car was thrown off-course.

"What the fuck?" she yelled.

Claude hurriedly looked in the rear-view mirror, and saw that behind them, two blue off-road vehicles were tearing into them.

"Shit! I think you got someone important, jackass!" he called, as he desperately tried to realign the ZR-350 back in position to outstrip the blue cars. Some sort of Manana in front of them hooted loudly as Claude barely swerved out of the way of a head-on collision.

"Well, what the fuck do you expect me to do? Aim for the guy next to him? How would I know that guy would be oh-so-fucking-important?" Catalina asked, almost hyper-ventilating.

"Whatever. Just let me try and lose these guys, they're moving fast!" Claude shouted back.

Luckily, Catalina stayed quiet for the rest of the pursuit. Unluckily for them, two of the same blue cars came across the intersection that Claude tried to cross, and the ZR-350 was tossed into the air with about the amount of force comparable with a super-centrifuge. Not surprisingly, both people inside were knocked unconscious on impact, though thankfully, the car had airbags. Somehow. Even though it was a street racing car.

Claude awoke in pitch-darkness. Then again, he was blindfolded, so it wasn't really pitch-darkness, as he almost could see the fading sun set down on Mexico City. He picked out a human-like shape in front of him, and tried to struggle off the chair, but not to his surprise, his hands were tied tightly behind the back of his chair.

Claude heard some light words spoken in Spanish, before a series of footsteps and calls. Eventually, a hand untied the blindfold, and Claude took in his surroundings. A grey room was in front of him, with a guy dressed in a Hawaiian t-shirt, and holding a baseball bat leaning against a wall, glaring hard at him. Claude ignored him, and focused on the door to the room, which had just opened. In came a tall man, with a goatee and black moustache, wearing a black suit, who was flanked by two of the same Hawaiian tee shirt-wearing men. _A gang leader_, Claude thought, and he steadied himself for the coming interrogation.

"Well, you've got a lot to explain for yourself, you prick," the black suited-man muttered angrily. He flicked his fingers, and the man with the baseball bat stepped forward.

"What do you want to know?" Claude asked softly.

"Why the fuck did you try to kill me with that hammer?"

"I didn't do it; my girlfriend in the side seat threw it. That's what she thinks of as entertainment." Claude replied, and suddenly, he was smashed in the right arm by the baseball bat. Pain rushed to him on all fours, but he resisted it hard by clenching his teeth

"What, trying to kill a gang leader surrounded by his men?" the man asked, staring.

"No, bashing the crap out of any sort of man with a metal object is what "releases her passions". She had wanted to do that, so I let her grab the hammer and chuck it at a pedestrian, who happened to be-"Claude explained, before the man cut him off.

"Yeah, whatever, what the fuck. I guess I should believe you, since you seem like some lowlife wannabe gangster. Undo his bonds, and set the fuckass free. And give him his car keys as well, we can deal with his girlfriend next."

The baseball bat-wielding man slowly moved over to the back of Claude's chair, and untied the bonds that held him. As he did that though, there was a massive explosion from somewhere above.

"What the bloody hell?" the tall man asked.

"Shit, it must be those Mexicana Diablos! Or maybe that Flores prick's thugs! We got to head back up!" one of the men shouted, and Claude suddenly realised all of the men were equipped with powerful MP5s.

"Well then, we'll need all the numbers we can get! Yo, prick!" the tall man shouted at Claude, as they rushed out of the small room.

"What?" asked Claude, pretty much expecting what was going to happen.

"Take one of my pistols okay, and shoot as many fucking pricks out there that aren't ours!"

The gang leader tossed a pistol at Claude that he had produced from a pocket.

"Why should I do that?" Claude asked, catching the pistol easily in one hand.

"Well, face it this way-if you kill me, or shoot any of our men, and we win, we kill you instantly. The thugs outside-they're ruthless, they'll mangle any gimp that gets in their way, and that includes foreigners like you."

With that, the gang leader rushed out of the room, pistol at the ready to kill any hostiles.

"Whatever, I was going to fight for you guys anyway." Claude muttered, following the tall man out of the small room.

As it turned out, he had been held in the basement of some particularly large building. After going up two flights of stairs, and through some doors, Claude found himself in the company of several of the Hawaiian-shirted men, ducking behind some counter. Wines bottle were on the cupboard behind them, so Claude figured out it was a room for the bar. A bullet flew over their heads, and shattered the bottle of what looked like a Shiraz, and red liquid exploded down on their heads, while somehow, the glass sprayed from the explosion missed everyone.

Claude peered over the counter, and spotted black-shirted men holding AK-47s, looking for a target. Unfortunately, one of them spotted him, and bullets spat out from his assault rifle, with the bullets bouncing off the steel of the counter. Claude ducked back down again as three more bottles of wine shattered, but he had the audacity to quickly bob up and fire twice at about where the bullets had been fired from. He was rewarded by a yell of agony, and he knew he had one of them. The men next to him, including the leader, boosted a bit by the successful hit, all quickly peered upwards and fired, before diving in different directions as bullets blew holes in bottles sitting on one of the rows that read something looking remotely like "Champagne". More wine dripped down, forming mixed puddles of red and green, but despite the fact that all the men were rolling in the liquid, it didn't matter, as the fire seemed to have eased. When one of the gang members peered over the top once more, to his surprise, all the Mexicans or whoever they were had been eliminated.

They all crawled out from behind the counter, and five of them took AK-47s, Claude not being one of them. Before they left for clearing off another room though, one of them stared back at the huge puddle of wine, and muttered:

"Waste of good wine."

Claude followed the six men through a foyer, where they cleared out three Mexicans and salvaged their assault rifles as well. To his surprise, Claude was tossed one of the Kalashnikovs, and he weighed it in his hand, before holding it ready for killing like all the others. The group made their way through the rooms, and with the presence of the leader there, morale seemed to be reached every time they entered a new zone of fighting, which seemed to have spread quickly since that first explosion.

After the final rival gang member had been shot in the face about fourteen times by five people at once, the gang leader turned to Claude.

"Hmm, not bad shooting, my friend. You not as big as a prick as I first thought. What's your name?" he asked.

"Claude," was the terse reply.

"I'm Cisco, leader of the Columbian Cartel. We should get into a more…professional room to have a little chat. Men! One of you, grab us one of the bottles of wine still left in the bar, and the rest, drag the bodies out front, and give each one of those…" Cisco was about to continue, when the mansion shook once again.

"Great, another wave?" one of the Cartel men grumbled loudly.

"Hey, amigo, I think it came from the rooftop. Maybe they went aerial for us…" another piped in.

"Damn, well, we should check it out just in case some guys with rocket launchers appear and take us all out." Cisco called, and the Columbian Cartel men set up a formation to head up to the roofs.

However, as they neared the rooftop, one of the Cartel men shouted 'Rocket!', and suddenly, a deadly missile came flying from the stairs leading down to the hallway in the mansion. The walls shook, and a couple of the Cartel men were knocked down by the impact, but nobody had gotten close enough to be badly hurt.

"We have to get rid of that shitface! Otherwise he's going to blast us all into kingdom come!" Cisco yelled.

Claude suddenly had a brainwave, something to do with a random physics lesson at a Los Santos Middle School. He suddenly sprinted forward, and went for the stairs. There was the Mexican Diablo with the rocket launcher at the top of the stairs, ready to shoot the moment he saw someone appear, but somehow, Claude didn't let him hold down the trigger to charge the rocket for shooting. He lunged forward, underneath where he was aiming the missile at, then somersaulted, vaulted upwards to the position of the man, before bringing him down with a low kick across his ankles; the sort of stuff that he had only seen in shifty '80s films.

The man flew into the air, loosening his grip on the rocket launcher. Claude followed up his low sweep kick with a flashing elbow as the man fell downwards, effectively incapacitating him. He heaved up the rocket launcher, and had to duck as bullets ripped at him. Deciding on a safer option, he dropped the rocket launcher, and headed back down the stairs, to where the Cartel men were waiting, set up against the two sides of the walls in the hallway.

"I've knocked the missile man unconscious, but there's still heat on the rooftop, and I still have no fucking idea what is there." Claude told Cisco as he made his way back to the Columbian Cartel head.

"Whatever, amigo, we should go check it out. But we should be careful." Cisco replied, holding his AK-47 up.

The Cartel soldiers all headed, one by one, up the stairs onto the roof, like some sort of SWAT team. Within moments, the guys on the rooftop had been taken out, and the threat was well and truly finished.

"Crazy shit, never expected I would get into this sort of stuff here in Mexico." Cisco mumbled as the exhausted Columbian Cartel gunmen all headed back into the main entertainment areas of the mansion.

When they reached the three entertainment rooms, Claude was pretty impressed and very surprised what with the Columbians did for entertainment. There were several very stylish looking TVs sitting in a large room, along with VCRs. In the next room, was full of arcade games, with the likes of Street Fighter II and Pacman. The third room was stocked up with SNES video game consoles.

"Now, amigo, we should get back to what we were about to do before those damn Mexicans rudely interrupted us." Cisco piped up.

"Uh, aren't we supposed to clear away the floors full of these dead guys?" Claude asked, frowning at the corpses lying about.

"Nah, my men can do that, they'll do anything to muck around afterwards. We should go to my office to have a chat." Cisco said, grinning.

Claude followed him slowly out of the entertainment rooms, leaving the Cartel men to do their job.

Ten minutes later, Claude and Cisco were sitting in the latter's "office", which included classy leather sofas, a TV, and a wine cabinet. Cisco definitely liked doing his business stylishly.

"Now, Claude, I should really give you more information about what's going on," the big man said, as he poured two glasses of red wine, offering one to Claude.

"All right." Claude nodded back, and accepted the alcoholic drink, taking a sip. It _was_ good wine, like one of the Cartel men had said.

"See, the Columbian Cartel, despite what everyone thinks of us as, a no-good, drug-pushing syndicate, we're actually quite sophisticated. Sure, we fiddle around with stuff that only crazy people would take, but we don't care. Money is the thing. Money is respect! And respect is everything in this world." Cisco said as he delicately drank the wine, eager to savour every drop.

"Now, we are actually several different groups, who operate all over America, Mexico, and of course, Columbia. We don't fight over the crap that American 'gang-bangers' go for. But we quarrel a hell of a lot. This organization is one of the biggest around-we operate in Liberty City, Carcer City, and even way north in Canada. Leaders control different cities-I switch constantly with Miguel, who is controlling the Liberty City operation of now." Cisco sipped the wine again.

"Uh-huh. And what's this got to do with wanting to involve me in a chat?" Claude asked quietly, gulping down some of the wine.

"Nothing, amigo, nothing. Just giving you some information before we get to the important stuff. We are really messed up in Liberty City; we can barely hang onto Cedar Grove let alone get into the rest of the city. But we doing fine here in Mexico, only we've got two problems."

"And what are they?" Claude asked, suddenly a bit more curious.

"There's a drug dealer here, controls a huge underground criminal empire in Mexico. He wants to be the best, see? He knows about respect, and money. His name's Flores Lor Santos. Biggest bloody prick in town, he'd do anything to gain full control of the city, and govern it from behind the line. Another bad thing we've got in our hands is the Mexicana Diablos. They specialise in providing exotic material and do smuggle a lot of crap underground to America. They gun-run and drug deal as well, though not as much as Flores. But we've got a problem with them as well-ever since we hit their gun-running operations in Vice City, they haven't left us alone here in Mexico, so we've got to watch ourselves."

"And so you want me to do some sort of crap about this?" Claude asked, interested, but not really wanting to get any further into the conversation. He was tired, and needed sleep, and a place to lie low.

"Yes, amigo. I believe, after what you showed today, you could make a very good Columbian Cartel soldier. Maybe even a lieutenant. Money, respect, you could have it all in you, my friend. Or I could just offer you some jobs…" Cisco said, looking rather uncertain as he awaited Claude's decision.

"But I'm not a cleaner, a criminal. I just want to be an average guy, earn a little bit of cash to live comfortably, and race cars!"

"But what about your girlfriend?" Cisco asked, smirking as he spoke.

That was it. Catalina. Claude knew that she would jump on this kind of opportunity, but the only problem was that he had no idea where the fuck she was. Maybe she tried to beat the crap out of one of the Cartel men and they shot her. Maybe…

"She's fine, but she's still as pissed as a bull. Though I'd think she'd like some more cash before you guys head back to Liberty…" Cisco smiled evilly.

"You know about us going to Liberty City? Personally, I don't give a crap about having piles of money. All I want is a good life, to live life in the fast lane." Claude said, still not quite enthusiastic enough about Cisco's offer.

"I've got contacts in Liberty. Do some good work for us here, or at least some tasks, and I'll get you and Catalina to come with me back to Liberty City. Then I can pull some strings, get you into some street races there, and maybe in Vice City."

"I don't trust you."

Cisco sighed, and drained the wine from his glass. Then, he got up, and opened the curtains, revealing the setting sun in Mexico City.

"See this, amigo? It's opportunity. You take it, and use it well, and who the hell knows, you might live as a king. If you don't choose to try and take it, you'll live your life with nothing. You'll die realising that you missed an opportunity to life. If you play your cards right, if you believe you can do whatever fucking thing you to do the moment you were born, then no prick will stop you. Possibility, amigo, is what makes live worth living."

Claude looked into Cisco's eyes, and then saw his belief. Maybe it was deceit. Maybe it was experience from years of tricking people like him. But in the end, he agreed.

"I'll do it."

**End note: **Phew! About time I finally got around to doing a chapter. Rolled over the top of writer's block for now, so updates should come more constantly now, rather than once every two months.


	23. Corrupt Love

**A/N:** Yeah, I'm still writing.

Claude had barely woken up when he was rudely shaken by the shake of his Sumo Wordman, bringing a message from…Ray. As he read it, he slammed it down on his bed in rage, furious with the fact that Ray had lied again.

"_Kid, sorry about the promise thing, but news has just broken out about a well-known guy in town-if you help him, he might get you a job for him, and plenty of dough._"

Claude doubted that would happen. Probably all that would happen would be him getting into a heap of trouble with the cops, in order to get some random piece of paper.

As it turned out, Claude was yet to be surprised by Ray. He nearly knocked the corrupt officer over as he entered the toilet cubicle, but Ray quickly brushed himself up, and calmly, despite Claude's anger, explained what he wanted.

"I know a real important man in town, a soft touch, with shall we say…exotic tastes and the money to indulge in them…"

Claude frowned, as Ray spoke. _Exotic tastes…as in human bodies?_

"He's involved in legal matter and the prosecution has some rather embarrassing photos of him at a morgue party or something…"

_Oh, Donald Love…_Claude thought. It was no surprise to him-there were rumours that as well as having connections with the Leone Family Mafia, Love was also an occasional cannibal and a necrophiliac. Creepy.

"Anyway, the evidence is being driven across town, and you're gonna have to ram that car and collect each bit of evidence as it falls out. When you've got all the stuff, leave it in the car and torch it. Or simply blow the vehicle carrying the evidence up. We're both gonna do pretty well outta this, kid. I'll give a word to Donald Love if you succeed-imagine having good connections with the most powerful media figure in Liberty City, eh? Oh, and I've provided you with a truck to do the evidence dashing." Ray said, exiting the toilet block just to show him where the truck was, before handing the car keys and heading back inside. However, he peered back out again, but simply to inform that the evidence truck was a black Bobcat, and it was going to leave the Staunton Island Police Department in half an hour.

Claude stared at him as he went off, but then shrugged, and fingered the keys in his hand as he headed towards the truck. It was a dingy-looking Pony van, but it seemed in good-enough condition. And it was too, and Claude decided to pay a quick visit to AmmuNation to grab a box of grenades to use on the truck if he got the evidence, or to use on the Bobcat itself.

Unfortunately, the traffic for him was awful. He nearly got into two collisions, and after purchasing his explosives, sped back towards the department…and got there just as the Bobcat drove off.

"Shite…" he mumbled, and he jammed his foot down on the accelerator.

The Pony sped forward, and Claude could soon see the covered back of the Bobcat, where the evidence was. He went to pull out his Uzi, but decided against it, and instead, rammed the back of the Bobcat. The Bobcat lurched forward, and the driver was jolted into action. Claude chased him, intent on opening up the back before the cops showed up, which would be very soon if it was being escorted. However, instead, he decided to use one of his grenades. Pulling the pin, he tossed it hard over the Bobcat, aiming ahead of it so it would get caught in the blast. Missed. He tried it again, all while driving with one hand, which wasn't too difficult to him. By now, the cops had shown up, and their sirens blazing, went after Claude, trying to knock him off the road.

He had to try something else. Pulling up next to the Bobcat, swerving to avoid one of the police cars executing a P.I.T on him, he bailed from the van and grabbed out at the back of the Bobcat, only just clinging on. Praying that the diver hadn't detected him, he pulled himself up, and went to reach for his Uzi…only to find his pocket was empty.

_Dang…_, Claude thought angrily, as he was forced to reassess. He had filled his pockets, both trouser and jacket pockets with grenades when he had purchased the stuff at AmmuNation, so first, he aimed carefully, and threw a grenade at the pack of chasing cops. He got the lucky bounce, and it blew up right in the middle.

_Typical action-movie hero luck_, he thought, as he pulled the material that was covering the box of evidence off.

It was then that Claude's Pony decided to make one last appearance. It had rolled on past the Bobcat, and now, had come to a rest, sliding its wheels so it was parked across the road. Claude pulled the pin of the grenade, and dropped it on the Bobcat, before diving off, and watching the Bobcat collide hard with the Pony, and moments later, explode.

Claude picked himself up from the ground, wincing at the pains in his elbow and his ribs. Then, he had to dive out of the way as a car sped down the street, horns screeching. He landed with another thump, and with the last of his leg strength, picked himself up and limped into the nearby noodle bar.

By the time the last strand of vermicelli had been consumed, and the last drop of soup drank, Claude felt a lot better. Even though he still had several cuts and bruises were forming on various parts of his body, he felt energised again now that he were fed, and watered by some good "breakfast". Well, at least it was the right time for the early morning meal.

He had some even better news as he headed out, finishing the last of his cardboard flask of tea. Ray paged him with some good information about Donald Love…

"_Kid, he's pleased about your deed. He wants you to head over to the Love Media so you can run some important errands for him. He also has the pay for your last job. Also, I think my partner's a rat. I want you to shut him up permanently, he goes fishing at his boat near the lighthouse most nights, so make sure his back-stabbing plans are sunk. I want him to sleep with fish, not eat them."_

Claude hailed a taxi, and paid the guy to drive him to his safehouse. He didn't feel like driving anyway. He had enough of fooling about.

After taking a shower and changing clothes, Claude jogged the short walk to the toilet blocks, seeing if Ray had anything for him. He had nothing…at least yet, apart from the hit on his partner, typical corrupt-cop stuff. He retrieved the Yakuza Stinger he had left there earlier in favour of the van, and drove off to Love Media.

He was ushered through the private doors having been led through the shiny marble floors, the posh-looking lifts, and executive rooms, to meet Donald Love. And when he was inside the same room as the business tycoon, he was rather surprised it wasn't more elegant. Love himself wasn't wearing anything fancy, or even a suit, but instead, a tracksuit with "LIBERTY CAMPUS" written on it. He acknowledged Claude with a raise of the hand, and he came over to meet him.

"First of all, thanks for dealing with that personal matter. People will read something into anything these days, and experience has taught me that a man like you can be very loyal for the right price, but groups of men get greedy…" Donald Love said, all in a slow, calm tone. Claude guessed the groups of men were gangs.

"A valued resource, an As-oriental gentleman I know has been kept hostage by some South Americans in Aspatria." Love continued, and Claude grinned as he was right.

"They're trying to extort additional funds from me, but I don't believe in re-negotiating. A deal is a deal, so they'll not see a penny from me. Go and rescue my friend, do whatever it takes. I have your pay for…removing that evidence." Donald Love smiled, and handed Claude a roll of cash.

Claude accepted it gratefully, and headed back outside to his Stinger. He decided to drop by AmmuNation to get another Uzi, especially since his old one was in a van that was probably being stripped-down. He also needed to replenish his sniper rounds, which he probably needed. He turned on the radio and tuned it to Chatterbox, before driving off.

After the jaunt to the weapons shop, a deposit at the garage of his Yakuza Stinger, and a hasty escape after hijacking a Cartel Cruiser, Claude pulled up by the compound in Aspatria. He had picked it out easily, especially in the small suburb. Now, he sat by in his car, and peered into the scope of the rifle, searching out for targets inside. There were about six Cartel members outside, and he could see four large garages, one of which was where the old gentleman was probably being kept. Pulling out his sniper, he zoomed in and picked off the four he could reach with his rifle, through the gaps in the gate. Then, he quickly bugged out, driving off for ten minutes so he could avoid suspicion. When he returned, the area wasn't crawling with Cartel, but they had removed the four bodies. He decided to finish the job off before any reinforcements could arrive.

He rolled up to the entrance of the compound, and left the windows closed. They were dark, making it hard for them to see who it was.

"Catalina wants us to transfer the Asian guy to Fort Staunton, he isn't safe here, amigo." Claude said, trying to sound Hispanic.

"All right, amigo, you can head in. He's in the second garage. Do it quick though, Senor Love's men are probably going to show up sooner or later," came the reply from the Cartel man. He didn't bother looking for the face; they were already in a state of bother.

The Cartel Cruised proceeded to the garage which had been mentioned. The door opened automatically for him-they had video surveillance, or something. Inside, sat the old man, but he wasn't tied down or anything. Claude rolled up the window, and whispered:

"I'm Mr. Love's assistant. Get in, buckle up tight and let's get out of here before the Columbians discover us."

The old oriental gentleman agreed with him. He opened the door, buckled up, and Claude spun the Cruiser around, hoping that he could get out in time. But once again, just for the sake of action, three Cartel Cruisers came from around the corner of the street, and began to drive towards the entrance…

Claude swore, and the old man also swore, in Korean, or Japanese, or something. The Cartel Cruiser hit the accelerator and its engine whirled loudly as Claude made a break for the exit. The man operating the gate didn't know what was going on, but the three blue Utes obviously did. They went to form a roadblock, but Claude was in no mood for fancy dodging. He went straight for the gap, and went through it, blasting between the two cars and leaving scratches on their bodywork…

The attempted roadblock screwed things up for the Cartel. They weren't in a position to chase, so all they could do was watch Claude drive off, knowing that Catalina would be pissed. More pissed than she usually was. Claude dropped off the man at Love Media, and was given another roll of cash, this time, $40000. He decided to make a visit to a place to grab an early lunch, before taking on the cop during the night and handling any other job that Donald might want of him.

He drove off, but didn't notice the Mafia Sentinel that had driven up and began winding on his trail…


	24. Open Cuts

As is the case for many busy commuters, a good start to the day is a cup of coffee, whether it was standard instant, or a cappuccino, to even the lazy iced coffee to get a day going.

Another way to get "hopped up", was of course, SPANK, which operated throughout Liberty City, mainly acquired by pimps and drug dealers through secret trades and sold on street corners with profits going to the start of it all, the Columbian Cartel. However, Catalina, despite her dumb blonde-like stupidity, had further plans in expanding the business that was yielding the Cartel thousands a day. She wanted a front. Something like the Cherry Popper Ice Cream Factory of old, before it was sold off to become a proper ice-cream franchise, now selling some of the highest quality desserts in the whole country.

The Kappa Coffee House was a very good option. Although it was a stable franchise, with shops across the country, second in popularity only to Tarbrush Coffees, the Liberty City company was in serious financial trouble, and they needed a boost quickly before they shut down completely. So it was this morning, where she pulled up outside the company headquarters in Pike Creek, she was met by a stern-looking man in a suit, unsurprisingly drinking Kappa Coffee. He was leaning against his '64 Esperanto.

"So you are Catalina…" he whispered, gazing at her as he drank from the mug.

"And I suppose we have business arrangements. You are in financial trouble, yes?" Catalina asked.

"Yes. Our losses are increasing at a rapid rate over here."

"Very well. I am the leader of a business…scheme. We are looking for a good franchise to cover ourselves under in order to make good profits out of this. I do not want the police to get in our way."

"So are you looking for a buyout of this Liberty City franchise?" the man asked hopefully, ignoring the criminal side of the offered deal.

"Yes. We are offering you enough to cover losses, and no more."

The man looked thoughtful, but then Catalina produced two briefcases. She opened one, and layers of the green business were lined inside, and the man's eyes widened. Slowly, he nodded and produced the legal papers to transfer ownership of the franchise to the Cartel. Catalina smiled, and handed him the two briefcases, and the two of them turned away from each other, happy with the deal.

But the Columbian Cartel leader wasn't handing over money to acquire a front. The first case was loaded with counterfeit money, and the second one contained a bomb. She entered her Blista, and her eyes glowed as she pressed the detonator as the man entered his car. In another city, Bones would have been sent on the job. But in Liberty City, nobody really cared.

Claude heard the first blast of shotgun hit the framework of the Cartel Cruiser. Within a split-second, the second blast struck the Cruiser as well. Swearing loudly, he checked the side-screen of his stricken vehicle, and spotted a Mafia Sentinel, its driver holding a shotgun and firing blasts at him while driving. Grabbing his case of cash, he bailed out of the car, and the driver followed. Immediately, the Mafioso was up to his neck, pointing the shotgun at his head.

"You're going to pay for what you did to Sal…" he muttered, getting ready to blow Claude's face off.

"Shit!" shouted Claude, pointing a finger at a location behind him.

The stupid mobster took the bait and Claude head-butted the man in the balls, knocking him out instantly. Not wanting to kill in cold blood, he prised the shotgun out of his hands and stomped off, entering the Mafia Sentinel with the case in one hand and the shotgun in the other. He drove back to his safe-house, dumping the Sentinel a few streets away and depositing his cash and shotgun, before hailing a taxi to grab some lunch.

As he sat down, he looked over his options. Ray's partner was only supposed to be around during the night, so he couldn't do anything there. It was best for him to go check out Donald and see if he had anything.

He arrived at Love Media to find the man performing tai-chi with the oriental gentleman that Claude had saved an hour or so ago. The old man gave him a bow, and Love came over to talk to him.

"Nothing drives down real-estate prices like a good old-fashioned gang war, apart from an outbreak of plague…but that might be going too far in this case." Donald addressed, and Claude grinned. Donald had learnt well from Avery Carrington, who he had met during his time in Vice City.

"I have noticed that the Columbians and the Yakuza are far from friends. Let's capitalize on this opportunity. I want you to kill the Yakuza waka-gashira, Kenji Kasen. Kenji is attending at a meeting at the top of the multi-storey carpark in Newport. Get a Cartel gangcar and eliminate him! The Cartel must be blamed for this." Love said, and he turned away on his heel, back to his tai-chi.

Claude headed back to his car, shivering. He couldn't help feeling uneasy for doing this, as Kenji had respected him. Still, it had to be done, so he headed to Fort Staunton and plugged a guy in a Cruiser in the arm, causing him to bail out and rush off looking for medical assistance. He drove the Cruiser over to the Newport carpark, which he knew well as he had retrieved cars for Ray a few days ago. The Cruiser rolled up the ramps in the carpark, and Claude's heart started pounding. Should he really be killing Kenji? Instead, he decided on a second option.

Pushing the Cruiser up the final ramp to the top level, he took a quick glance. The Yakuza wasn't expecting this attack, but they were well armed. However, Claude used this short hesitation to pick out Kenji, and drive straight at him.

However, at the last moment, he deliberately swerved, avoiding three or four simultaneous shotgun shells. Kenji dived to the ground, unharmed. The Cartel Cruiser flew off one of the ramps on the corners of the top-level carpark, in a wild spin. Claude steadied himself, trying to avoid the dizziness and control the car. Finally, he decided that option was stupid, so he opened the door and dived out moments before he hit the ground.

The ute crushed next to him, and once again, Claude was in bad shape. He had hit the ground pretty hard, and there was blood pouring from a cut on his head, and he had the wind knocked out of him. Gritting his teeth, he picked himself up and moved out of sight so that the Yakuza couldn't spot the fact that he was the driver of the attempted assassination vehicle, and collapsed against a wall a few blocks away.

Thankfully, the blood flow managed to stop a bit, but Claude was in a bad way, so he took a taxi to the hospital. He had plenty of time to kill until the night: Donald wouldn't be pleased at first, but Claude's act would've provoked the animosity between the two crime syndicates past blow-up point. The hospital visit wasn't long, and Claude was soon patched up with a few bandaids, but he failed to notice one door he passed as they escorted him to the express medical room. That door read: Leon McAffrey.

Taking a break for the afternoon, Claude stuck around in his safehouse watching TV in front of a pile of snacks and some beer. The place had cable, so he could sit his way through everything Fox, NBC and CBS could throw at him. He dozed off at about four, and woke up at six in time to get some food before completing his kill.

However, it wasn't that simple. He found a police boat hanging around at the dock, and after adjusting to the controls, drove his way to Portland Rock, where he spotted the fishing boat. Quickly, he pulled the boat up to the shore, exited and checked out the target. He had one free shot; if he missed, the chase was on. And with Claude not being a brilliant sniper and in the darkness, it wasn't going to be easy

In the end, it was anti-climatic. Claude had a choice of two things that looked like the target. He guessed correctly with his gun, and plugged the person in the head. The man went down like a rock, and Claude ran off, back to his police boat to cruise back to Staunton Island.

Alas, during those moments as he completed the kill, the police radio on the boat had beeped and emitted a message, stating all the details of the transfer of Leon McAffrey for his Federal deposition. Luckily and unluckily for Claude, Ray found out about it. He wasn't pleased.


	25. Fed Rush

Ray's early-morning message page to Claude's Sumo Wordman was short and explosive.

"You useless bastard! You totally messed up! My ass is on the line and you can't even kill a damned fly. I paid you good money to kill that witness and he ain't dead! And today he's gonna make a federal deposition: the real deal! He's being moved any second now from the Carson General Hospital up in Rockford. Get your ass over there quick. If he squeals, I squeal…"

It was hardly the wake-up call Claude was looking for. Cursing, he tossed the pager away and reached for his clothes, absent-mindedly dragging them on. He checked the time: six o'clock in the morning. And it seemed as if he didn't even have enough time for an early-morning Tarbrush Coffee: he had to move quick. Although he did take the time to down a cup of water and grab his Louisville Slugger, he shuffled into the elevator onto ground-level where he though temporarily about taking his Banshee: deciding better of it, he moved onto the street. Early-morning delivery trucks were making their rounds, which made them easy pickings for carjacking. He sprinted over to a nearby one, just as the driver unloaded a box onto the pavement.

With a hard pull, the passenger door opened with a click and the co-driver stared at him in shock. Claude wasted no time in yanking him out and dumping him on the ground. Slamming the door shut, he moved over to the driver's seat and hit the accelerator. In typically lucky fashion, the engine had been left on, and he pulled away down the street before any response could be uttered by either of the victims. A car theft file would go to the police, but they nearly always had their hands full with things considered more important in a crime-infested city.

Two blocks away, Claude slowed down to a friendly pace and calculated the quickest way to the Carson Hospital. But no matter what way he took, he would have to move fast.

He spat around the final corner a few minutes later, temporarily tipping onto two wheels, to see the ambulance pulling out of the carpark. But his bulky van had already built up a solid head of steam and he gave chase. He assumed the body was in the back, so ramming off the back doors was necessary. The ambulance was moving fast too: sirens blazing, it cleared out traffic in front of it which acted as both an advantage and a disadvantage to Claude. One, that with no traffic to dodge, he would have a clear shot at the ambulance rear. But he guessed that there had to be some sort of police patrol on alert after his previous murder attempt had failed, which meant mixing in among the traffic to temporarily dodge heat would be impossible.

Just as he mused over these two points, the ambulance slowed a little to avoid airtime down a slope and Claude decided to go for it. His truck was pushing the hundred-mile-an-hour barrier as he slammed into the back of the ambulance. Both back doors were crunched inwards, and as the ambulance careened over the slope, blew open and ended up on the road. The ambulance itself was driven forward by the impact and unable to control as its wheels hit the surface, wobbled before overturning and ended upside-down eating concrete on the edge of the pavement. The cast of the badly-injured cop rolled out from the now-exposed rear (no, don't take anything from it.)

Claude slowed his van to land safely unlike the ambulance, which it did with a thump, before speeding over to the cast. He figured that going directly over it would finish the job. He took a deep breath and accelerated with again. The wheels went directly over the corpse, producing a series of muffled crunches and for a temporary moment, Claude felt sick. Then, knowing that cop support would be arriving in a hurry, he scarpered to dump the van before finally getting himself some breakfast. He didn't think that he'd ever been up so early for anything outside of watching television for about five years.

The gang-war between the Cartel and the Yakuza was heating up. Even though it had been started just the previous day, there had already been shots exchanged between Yakuza and Cartel gang members on the street. Neither side had really made a major move…yet. Claude's destruction of a series of SPANK stands and his killing of King Courtney had temporarily slowed down Cartel drug-pushing operations, but with the Kappa Coffee House under new management, SPANK was still plentiful on the streets.

For Donald Love, he was expecting the gang war to drive down prices across the board on Staunton Island, but that would take a few days at least. Instead, he was turning his focus to a package of highly sensitive information that was to arrive on a plane from Washington in a few days. He had set a secretive mission involving a large number of infiltrators into the government's intelligence department, and the information they had acquired was worth millions: all they had to do was smuggle the package back to Liberty City, and from there, Love could extort payment in exchange for the destruction of the information.

But of course, things weren't going to be easy. The government had somehow been tipped off, and they had immediately alerted Liberty City officials and sent CIA agents over. Each arriving flight, private or not, was being checked thoroughly by airport officials. So Love was pulling a double-bluff: he deliberately had a leak-out that a plane would be dropping packages over Liberty City waters to a middleman, before landing. But instead, the plane would continue to fly into Liberty City, where it could be easily collected by airport officials, to be paid off when they made a discovery. It was now a matter of waiting.

It was a matter of waiting for Claude too. Unusually, no jobs came for him over the next few days: the first quiet period of lull he had for a while. He didn't mind this much: it was an excuse to mess around Liberty City, watch TV and play games on his newly-purchased Playstation 2. One of the games he played was rather ironic of his own current situation: about a man who had been stabbed in the back by a gang leader and was looking for revenge. He advanced through the storyline, eventually resulting in a dramatic car-chase finished off with the protagonist acquiring a SAM to blow a helicopter out of the sky.

But things weren't going to stay calm for too long. The Cartel had already placed and subsequently exploded several car-bombs in Yakuza territory, while Yakuza Stingers made constant forays into Fort Staunton, men drive-bying with Uzis and sometimes AK47s. The much nimbler Japanese sports cars were able to run circles around pursuing Cartel Cruisers. Something had to give: on one occasion, two large SWAT teams had been called in to control the situation and had suffered seventy percent casualties, but had eventually arrested all the men. SPANK was still selling on street corners like hot dogs, and they were being well-guarded by rifle-toting Cartel. Twice though, the Yakuza had sneaked snipers close enough to clean out a couple of Kappa Coffee Stands, but they hardly stemmed the flow. And the most important thing of all: that Catalina had readied death-squads in Shoreside Vale: her best men, wielding M16s, given orders to cut down Claude in a hail of fire if he was spotted. This made things very dangerous, but it was important for such a plan to be kept under wraps.

Over all of this, Flight A16399, containing Donald Love's important package, was ready for takeoff. Because it was a reasonably short flight and it would get to Liberty City in a few hours from its remote destination, Donald Love had time to order for Claude to head to Love Media for briefing. He caught a taxi and pulled up a couple of blocks away, then walked inside.

Love was sitting around his office drinking coffee and eyeing a couple of giggling, twittering young females waiting outside a nearby room, possibly for an audition. He acknowledged Claude with a wave and motioned for him to sit down.

"In these days of moral hypocrisy, certain valuable commodities can be hard to import. I have gotten my hands on some information which could generate great wealth, but I have to keep it out of the reach of the Feds. That is where you come in, my friend." Love said, as he moved over to a map of Liberty City.

"On its approach from the airport tonight, a light aircraft will pass over the bay. It will drop several inflatable packages into the water. Pick them up before anyone else does. I have already placed a speedboat-a Speeder model off the jetty on Portland Beach: take the map too. The plane will arrive in about two hours. You should watch out for any attention you might get from the man. When you get the packages, take them back here. You can keep the boat if you want, but it's your responsibility to make it inconscpicuous." Love said, as he pointed to a spot about half a kilometre off Portland Beach.

Claude couldn't help feeling just a little suspicious. The scenario felt like Love had made a deal with the police just like Salvatore had with the Cartel those few weeks ago. But then again, he probably wouldn't have told him of any police attention if that was the case. He exited the room, drove back to his apartment and grabbed the keys for his Yakuza Stinger.

He would have to be careful though. Crossing the Callahan Bridge would result in him ending up in Harwood, which was neighbouring St Marks: Mafia territory. He figured his plan would be to enter Harwood, then cross onto the beach by foot before retrieving the boat. With that, he decided his Yakuza Stinger was not worth risking, so he put the keys away, took his Uzi and some grenades and headed outside to flag for a taxi to drive him back into Portland: the first time since he had dealt with some Diablos for Kenji.

Although he did spot a few Mafia and had his gun ready to fire, they didn't recognise him and he was able to get onto the beach without trouble. There were still plenty of people on it: spring was in full swing and people were getting ready for summer. He walked along the sand, trying to keep sand from entering his shoes, and spotted several boats parked along the jetty: they ranged from normal sailboats to flashy imports such as the new Squallo IV and a couple of Jetmax racing boats: the absolute luxury of a boat-owner's collection. Luckily for him, there was only one Speeder docked as Love had said, so he clambered aboard, twisted the keys and roared off, leaving a geyser of water behind him.

Claude had plenty of time to wait it out and get into position and the boat's fuel tank was full, so he decided to take a cruise around Liberty. The water was murky and uninviting compared to the clean blue glass of Vice City, but it was still amazingly invigorating, having the wind blow through his hair as he sped along the waters. Sure, he experienced a similar effect when riding along in his Banshee, but this was still a wholly different experience. When there were about twenty minutes until Love's set deadline, he drove back to the position, reading the map as he did so.

Gazing into the distance, he soon made out a spot on the horizon. At first, its outline was like every other aeroplane, but as it drew closer, Claude spotted it out as a Beagle. It buzzed forwards toward Liberty City, and Claude watched in anticipation, waiting for the packages to drop. He looked around for any possible surveillance: Coast Guards or police Predators with those nasty machine guns. But as the Beagle approached and dropped its first package, Claude realised that he was a bit too far away. He sped the boat forward just as the first package hit the water with a splash, resurfacing a few seconds later.

Pulling up beside the package was going to be a difficult thing: he was hardly a boat-driving expert. So he took it slowly, letting the boat cruise alongside the package: wrapped, it looked about as large as a VCR. He reached for the package as the boat moved by, and just managed to grab it. Looking around, he noticed another package having been dropped up ahead. Turning the boat around, he moved towards it. But unknown to him, two police boats appeared from behind him, still a fair distance away but noticing the line of boxes that were floating in the water. Slowly, they began to move forwards…

Claude had an easier time getting the second package, piling it up on the first one. As he reached the third one, he was startled by the wailing of a siren behind him: The two police boats who had initially been on a normal patrol had given chase to him, and he realised that he had to move fast. By now, the Beagle had dropped all its cargo and was flying off towards Francis International Airport, where it would be recovered by airport officials: they were being paid off as the events were occurring.

Claude panicked a little when he rushed the boat almost past the fourth one, but he climbed onto the back to pick it out of the water. There was one more: he had to be quick, as he could sense that the police would call for further backup: almost certainly the Coast Guard, but maybe even a police Maverick or two sending rappelling special agents down. At this thought, he decided to get the package at speed: it was risky, but he would get a bit of a gap from the Predators which he was confident that he could outstrip.

Taking a deep breath, he hit the accelerator and pulled one hand over the edge. The Speeder gained velocity as the Predators drew closer. Two more Coast Guard boats were headed towards the scene. The package neared, and with a loud grunt, Claude managed to grasp the box in his fingers. But he had overcompensated in reaching over. Suddenly, he found himself off-balance and with two police boats behind him, ready to fire. His knee thumped into the side of the speedboat, and he tried to steady himself. Releasing one hand from the box, he used it to push himself back up as the boats drew within twenty metres of him, ready to fire their machine guns. Quickly dropping the box down, Claude pulled out an Uzi from his pocket and fired at both windows before slamming down the accelerator.

The front window of the Predator was bulletproof, but it didn't stop both boats from veering away temporarily, and that was the gap Claude needed. He could see the Coast Guard boats by now, forming a little blockade, but they didn't pack the heat: only the drivers would. So ducking down but keeping his foot on the accelerator, he jerked the steering wheel to the right. Taking quick peeks, he noticed his speedboat buzz past the Coast Guard at top speed, the lawmen firing their guns. As he kept his head down, he heard several bullets ping into the Speeder's polished framework, but he knew that he was past the danger bit. It was time for him to get back to Love Media before they had any land support ready.

He grounded the speedboat offshore on Staunton Island and snatched the piled-up boxes. There were two FBI Kurumas showing up at the scene, so he dropped the boxes and pulled out his grenades. Lighting one, he scored a direct hit underneath the one of the cars, sending the wreckage blown off sky-high. The second one bounced off the other Kuruma before exploding, failing to explode it but forcing it to roll over once before landing right-side up. The two FBI agents pulled themselves out, keeping the upper half of their body away from gunfire, but Claude disabled them by hitting both with shots on the lower body. As they rolled away, writhing in pain, Claude went back for the packages and took the FBI Kuruma.

With the FBI car now under control, he was able to avoid most of the heat that was being thrown around. But he had to be quick and get it to a Pay N' Spray for repainting, as it would be suspicious for a secret-agency car to be paraded around the streets. It was lucky that he chosen the right spot to land: the repair garage was nearby and he was able to have a new coat of shiny red paintwork applied, and the sirens removed before he could deliver the goods back to Love Media.

The task had been difficult, but Claude was expecting good payment for the trouble had had gone through, and plus he had a set of great new wheels: a regular-looking family car carrying the speed of a Stinger in the engine. What he heard next on the in-built radio was even more pleasing.

A newscast was broadcasting the latest news on the Staunton Lift Bridge: it was to be reopened tomorrow morning. Shoreside Vale was open: Catalina was in striking distance.

With the breaking of that news, a very happy Claude drove to Love Media to deliver the packages.

But the Cartel had their own men inside the LCPD, and they had been made aware of the actual location of the information.

It was time for two former lovers to cross paths again.


	26. Grand Theft Aero

Claude arrived back at Love Media with a grin on his face, and the media tycoon seemed pleased with his job as he was handed the packages. But what he said both surprised Claude and wiped the smile off his face, at least temporarily.

"Thank you for retrieving those packages, but they were only a decoy. Sorry about that, but that's sometimes the way in business." Donald told Claude in an apologetic tone.

"My real objective was hidden on the plane all along. Airport officials working under the government have acquired it, but I intervened beforehand. Cross the bridge to Shoreside Vale tomorrow morning, get to Francis International Airport and retrieve the package. It will be waiting for you at Customs Hangar 4 in the aircraft's fuselage. There should be no trouble getting it."

_Well, that's a good thing. Nothing more to do today, _Claude thought. Donald lifted out another wad of notes and handed them to him. 10 grand, not too much considering some of his previous pay, but he was already getting wealthy anyway.

As Claude headed back to his residence, the Cartel was already making plans to acquire the package. Since Claude had been spotted following the plane, that particular flight's details and flight instructions had been searched for and quickly established (nothing found on Love). Catalina had been informed, and she had decided that as early as possible in the morning, she would accompany a Cartel strike team to obtain the target. Although she herself wasn't exactly smart, she did know what she wanted for the organisation and was determined to execute.

The plan was to storm the site of the plane, discover the location of the package, acquire it and then take it back to Fort Staunton for safer storage before moving back to Shoreside Vale.

And as morning dawned, the Cartel executed it without a hitch. They moved past sleepy-eyed airport security using three Pan-Lantic company vans (a front company which 'owned' Fort Staunton) and captured the airport officials (and subsequently disposed of). After the package had been discovered and stored away, several Cartel members were left to stand guard just in case more heat came, but it was more specifically aimed for Claude, while the rest moved back to Fort Staunton.

But Claude was on their heels. Shortly after several Cartel vans had left the airplane site, he had rolled into the airport on a baggage handler, taken from an unfortunate worker, since normal cars weren't allowed in. As he approached Love's plane, he knew that something was wrong. He had brought his AK-47 in a concealed bag, along with his Uzi, but had left his Sniper Rifle back at his place, a decision which he now regretted. Neither of his weapons had a scope for him to scout out any problems, but from his location, he could spot a couple of dead bodies on the ground, and an upturned van as well.

Claude decided to risk a pass by the location with his baggage handler. Taking out his assault rifle in one hand, he steered with the other and buzzed past the mentioned customs hangar. He took a quick glance at the situation, expecting bullets to whiz by, but instead, he spotted Cartel shirts guarding the parked Beagle. _How do they know what I'm after?!_, Claude thought furiously. It was either Love's fault or something that he hadn't spotted previously. But he still had to deal with the current situation.

Guiding his baggage handler to a safe distance, he assessed his options. One, he could Rambo-charge the Cartel and gamble that there were only a small number. Two, he could wait until the Cartel left the area and either ambush them, or call for support from one of the Kasens (who were itching to take a crack at the Cartel anyway.) But Claude didn't want to wait for Yakuza support, as if the package was already gone, it would have made it a lot harder to track down as time ticked on. So he grabbed his AK-47, readied his baggage handler and hit the accelerator. The little buggy was hardly an efficient attack vehicle. It was slow, weak and left the driver badly exposed, but Claude knew that if he executed the surprise attack well enough, the Cartel men wouldn't have a chance of even firing on him. That was if there weren't about twenty of them.

The vehicle got to a decent speed though, and as Claude rolled past, he started firing wildly, keeping his foot on the accelerator. The Cartel dived around in shock at first, before returning fire. Several of Claude's bullets had struck, only killing one but leaving a couple of others wounded and in agony. But as it turned out, the risk had paid off: the Cartel had only stationed four guards around the plane. The remaining Cartel guard, despite the Kalashnikov still in his hand, jumped into one of the remaining vans and went for the baggage handler.

Claude, who had to turn the baggage handler around and pull out his Uzi in exchange for his spent AK-47, finally saw the van coming. Swearing loudly (for once), he had to make a lightning decision. The handler wouldn't be able to outrun the van and probably had no chance of surviving a goose chase anywhere. If the van hit him at that speed, he'd most likely be blown off the handler, leaving him liable to be run over. He doubted he had enough time to blow up the van before it came onto him, so he decided that baiting would have to be the answer. His baggage handler pulled away to the left, and then turned back around to the right. The van drew closer, the driver grinning evilly as he readied for impact.

But at the last moment, Claude took a leap of faith, gripping his Uzi as he did so. The van crashed into the baggage handler, sending it flipping off in the opposite direction. The van jerked a little, but steadied from the impact and turned around to take a shot at Claude. But he was now ready, and was firing his Uzi in bursts as he did so, aiming at the tyres. Bullets pierced the two tyres on the right side of the van, forcing it to skid out even further. As it did so, Claude took the opportunity to grab his AK47 once more, stuffing in a new clip. He readied the weapon, aimed precisely and fired. A third tyre was blown out, and finally, bullets managed to find the gas tank and turn the van into smoking carbon wreckage.

With the van dealt with, Claude moved back into the customs hangar, where the two injured Cartel were now unconscious from blood loss. He took a look at the fuselage, but unsurprisingly, nothing was around. So his gaze turned to the second remaining van, the Pan-Lantic logo painted on. The Cartel front company. If the Cartel had gotten hold of the package, they would've taken it either to Cedar Grove which was Cartel territory and boasted a series of heavily-guarded luxury mansions, or Fort Staunton which was similarly secure. Claude supposed he could just go back and tell Love, who could probably organised another task in which he could retrieve the package with some sort of backup. But he was determined to solve this by himself: it was one of those impulses which he just seemed to pick up every time the Cartel was involved. With that, he took the remaining Pan-Lantic van out of the airport, called security, and drove off towards Fort Staunton, figuring that it would be the obvious choice behind Cedar Grove.

Since it was early morning on Staunton Island, Claude had enough time to check the place out before Cartel started showing up on the streets. His van would also offer as a temporary disguise. After getting his sniper rifle and some ammunition from his hideout, he paged Asuka for Yakuza support and got a positive reply a minute later. With that, he drove over and entered the unguarded gate entrance to the construction site. Taking out his sniper rifle, he scoped around the area and found large numbers of Cartel scattered around: at least ten. That made sniping them one by one difficult, unless they were rather isolated. But if he chose his targets right, he'd have plenty of time to clean out the Cartel before he was discovered, or at least so the Yakuza could come in and finish off.

The first two targets were relatively easy to pick: they were hanging together, and concealed from the others. Claude disposed of these with headshots, and then another one about twenty metres away. Most of the Cartel seemed to be gathered near a blue-walled area in the middle of the construction site: Claude assumed that the area was first-priority. But before he could start on them, he would have to pick off the outsiders, or risk being attacked from behind when he got closer.

Although he did miss a couple of shots, the bolt was worked quickly enough that none of the Cartel men had a real chance to react: a good start. Fitting in another new clip into the rifle, Claude lay his AK47 onto the seat next to him, and started firing at the Cartel guarding the blue wall. He'd dropped three when they started running about, panicking but alert. Work bolt, fire, work bolt, fire. Three more fell down, rendered disabled or dead. By now, the guards had followed the cracks of gunfire to the lone van parked near the entrance, out of sight, and was starting to move towards it. Claude fired one last shot, blowing away the arm of a Cartel, before jumping out of the van with the assault rifle in both hands, firing.

The hail of bullets took the guards by surprise: they didn't expect such a hasty exit. The first few made no attempt to dodge and were cut down. There were only a few remaining now: Claude was amazed at how he had done such a number on the Columbians, but he had to close it out. Ducking behind a pile of wooden blocks, he reloaded his weapon and ducked back out to fire. The four remaining men had guns blazing though, which alerted the two important Cartel figureheads who had just gone up a lift, but Claude was crafty enough to flush them and take them out one at a time. He then slowly approached the blue wall, ready for any remaining Cartel, but found nothing but a lift on the other side. Shrugging, he stepped on and activated the button.

On top, Catalina and Miguel had both heard the gunshots below them. But they hadn't been able to leave at that moment; it was only now that they were prepared, but this was on the assumption that there were still Cartel guards around. Catalina pulled off her Darth Vader-like ski mask which was a part of an all-black leather outfit which she used in robbery situations, and spoke:

"Hey, let's get this outta here. God knows what it is, dumb bastards have no idea, but he seems to want it badly enough so it must be worth something."

As she spoke, the elevator came humming up behind him, and out dived Claude, AK47 ready to fire.

"Who the heck?!" Miguel yelped.

"YOU!" Catalina hissed.

"Take it easy, amigo, de nada, de nada!" Miguel shouted frantically, stepping back as Claude moved towards them, his eyes filled with hate and gun ready to fire.

"YOU, I left you pouring your heart out into the gutter!" the Cartel leader snarled, but even she knew that the situation was dire.

Claude looked at the package. Miguel followed his gaze, snatched it from Catalina and shoved it into Claude's hands.

"Hey, don't shoot, amigo. No problems, we all friends here, take it."

"Don't be such a pussy!" Catalina roared, her eyes a furious red.

"We got no choice baby! La-aaargh!" Miguel fired back, but he was interrupted as Catalina fired a bullet into his left shin, sending him to the floor.

"You always got a choice you dumb bastard."

With that, Catalina made for an emergency exit. Before Claude could stop her, she kicked out with her knee-high leather boots, sending Claude to the ground and vaulted over the edge, down into a conveniently-placed pile of boxes, before running towards one of the remaining Cartel Cruisers. Claude pulled himself up and fired with his AK47 but missed, before he unleashed a stream of obscenities as he watched her get away.

"So the whore got away…" a female voice behind Claude said, making him jump.

"I'm sorry about the crazy bitch, they're all the same, por favor." Miguel pleaded as Asuka Kasen pulled out what looked like a torture stick.

"But you've done me a favour, Claude. You're not the only one that has a score to settle with the Columbians. This _worm_ here organised an attempt which tried to kill my brother." Asuka snarled, as she took a swing at Miguel's face. There was a crack, and blood started pouring from Miguel's nose as well. Claude tried to keep a straight face.

"I never try kill no Yakuza-"

"Liar! We all saw the Cartel Cruiser. We're going to hunt down and KILL all you Columbian dogs!" growled the Yakuza leader, and she turned to Claude.

"I'll be operating on our little friend here to extract information and a little pleasure."

Claude tensed. _Hurting people was Catalina's idea of pleasure too_, he thought, shivering.

"You, drop by later. I'm sure I'll require your services."

Claude nodded and turned around, ready to move off. But Miguel scrabbled for him, shouting. Asuka kneed him in the chest, sending him grunting to the floor, but he kept resisting.

"Please amigo, don't leave me with her, she psycho chica! Amigo?" Miguel gasped, as Claude moved down the elevator. He could hear the Columbian's screams as he headed back down, before being punctured by several more cracks.

On ground level, the Yakuza reinforcements had finally arrived: three Yakuza Stingers filled with gang members who were now securing the site. Fort Staunton was now Yakuza territory, but physically didn't matter too much for the Cartel: their fortress at Cedar Grove was overwhelming. But it appeared that the Yakuza had scored one in a bitter gang war that would tear Liberty City further apart.

After all the drama it had taken to get the package, Claude had almost forgotten to deliver it back to Love. Love was pleased, and quickly had the package locked away. He handed Claude another briefcase containing fifty grand, and told him that the next job would be ready whenever he needed to do so. That was good enough for Claude. He drove back to his hideout and then for a massive breakfast at one of Liberty City's many cafes. It had been a job well done.

Meanwhile, Catalina hadn't stopped since entering the Cartel Cruiser. The Yakuza Stingers had been in no position to pursuit, even with their superior speed, and she had sped along the lift bridge back to her mansion at Cedar Grove. Throwing away her black gloves, she entered the massive living room inside, where she was set upon by several butlers holding drinks. Snatching a couple of the assorted cocktails, she kicked her feet up on a nearby coffee table and thought. Miguel was in Yakuza custody, but he was essentially useless; Fort Staunton had been lost but it had only been a small piece, SPANK was still selling quickly and undiscovered and well, she was still alive. As she stripped and changed back into her normal clothes, she realised that it would take a drastic move to push the Yakuza back. A plan began to form at the back of her mind, and she began smiling wickedly…

After consuming four slices of toast, several large slices of bacon, four eggs and three sausages along with three cups of coffee, Claude was re-energized and just a little staggered. He decided that a break of three hours would be enough before he went back to Love Media for his next mission: there was no point in keeping the media tycoon waiting.


End file.
